The Most Dangerous Game
by PatchworkDK
Summary: Lassiter, O'Hara, Gus, and Shawn are kidnapped by an organization that caters to rich men who hunt human beings for sport. First, the Psych gang must escape; but even if they do, they will still have to live with the aftermath. Starts Shules and Carlowe, ends Lassiet. Rating is for concepts & violence only. Standard fanfiction disclaimers apply.
1. A Tale of Two Cities

They sat in the air-conditioned comfort of Starbucks. It was as much "neutral ground" as Juliet could think of to end their little excursion. She'd told Carlton she wanted to take Marlowe out for shopping and coffee after Marlowe's release in order to get to know her partner's lover. That much was true, but it wasn't the type of getting-to-know Carlton thought.

After two hours of girl talk, small talk, and just talk, Juliet had seen no reason to alter her objective.

"Before you go," Juliet said as Marlowe moved to rise from the table, "there are a couple of things I want you to know." She kept her voice as polite as her facial expression. Juliet was deadly serious, not exaggerating in the slightest, and Marlowe needed to understand that. "First: I've been Carlton's partner for six years. He's not just a friend, he is almost family. Two: I've been on the force for almost twice that time. And three: I am watching you."

Juliet paused, just like she'd rehearsed, to let the reality of the last sentence sink in. If the way Marlowe's eyes darkened was any indication, it was.

"I get it: you were poor before your conviction, and now you're completely broke. Carlton is good with money, so he's got a nice little stash of it, and he 'provides for his ladylove' in a way most modern men don't. He's bought you a house to live in, let you use his car, and I know the bills he's paying aren't all food and utilities." Juliet let her eye slip to Marlowe's sharp red top and then back up to meet Marlowe's furious gaze. Fine, let her be angry. "If this is some sort of long con, if you are _using_ Carlton's feelings to fleece him or even for some post-penitentiary security until you find something permanent, believe me when I tell you that not even Shawn and his psychic visions will ever find the body when I am through. So you can either make your excuses and leave now, or else stay knowing I won't accept anything less than you showing _every bit_ as much commitment and devotion as Carlton. Am I clear?" Juliet smiled with her mouth, but left her gaze glacial. The effect was chilling when Carlton did it. Marlowe's eyes widened even as her mouth stayed a hard line of anger, so apparently it was scary when Juliet did it, too.

"Crystal clear, Detective," Marlowe replied. "I love Carlton. I'm sorry you can't accept that. Thanks for the coffee and the afternoon."

Juliet hadn't expected a confession – she wasn't even 100% sure Marlowe was really conning Carlton, the threat was meant as to deter a worst-case-scenario more than anything else – but she certainly hadn't expected Carlton to greet her in front of the department the next morning with a surly, "What the Hell, O'Hara?"

"What do you mean, 'what the Hell'?"

"Your little speech to my girlfriend yesterday. That was completely out of line. You had no right to lie to me about your intentions just to get Marlowe alone so you could threaten her with murder."

"I was out of line?" Juliet asked, her own ire rising to meet Carlton's. "Because I recall you making the exact same speech to Shawn when we started dating." Not that Carlton or Shawn had told her, but Shawn had told Gus, which was almost the same as posting it on your Facebook. "Including the murder threat."

"That was completely different!" Carlton shot back, his voice rising.

"Oh, really? And how was it different, Carlton, tell me how it was different." Juliet crossed her arms, sarcasm lacing her tone.

"Let's see," Carlton said, matching her attitude for attitude, "other than the fact your boyfriend is actually a con artist, _I_ told Spencer that I'd shoot him if he treated you like just another conquest."

"It's the same thing," Juliet said pedantically, "and Shawn is not a con artist."

"No it's not, and yes he is."

"Just because you can't accept that Shawn is psychic doesn't mean that I'm out of line giving Marlowe the _exact same speech_ you gave him. Do you know what your problem is, Carlton?"

"Tell _me_ what _my_ problem is, O'Hara," Carlton argued back, running over the top of Juliet's, "Your problem is that you can't take what you dish out!" The two sentences ran over the top of each other, a jumbled morass that had Sergeant Allen fleeing for the station entrance even as it drew Shawn, unnoticed by the fighting pair, like a magnet.

"It's completely fine for you to threaten Shawn, and I'm supposed to be complimented like it's some kind of sign of affection, but now that it's your girlfriend on the receiving end it's out of line!"

"Oh, cut the histrionics, O'Hara," Carlton snapped, his choice of words deliberately provocative and devastatingly successful. "Telling Marlowe to dump me because she's only interested in me for my money isn't a sign of affection."

Juliet's fury escalated to blinding and was cut as if by a knife in the same second, and she froze in the face of twin impulses to clock Carlton in the jaw and grovel for forgiveness. In the millisecond pause, Shawn leaped to his girlfriend's "rescue."

"Oh, come on, Lassie, that's just _true._"

Juliet saw the muscle shifts telegraphing Carlton's movement. Shawn, facing Carlton's left side, couldn't. Juliet dived to intercept the blow and was either too slow or too fast, she couldn't be sure. All she knew was a painful impact on her left side and spots dancing at the edge of her vision. Juliet dropped to one knee, the roughness of the sidewalk a dim counterpoint. The moment – or moments – it took for her to shake off the blow seemed drawn out forever. By the time she had drawn herself back up and demanded the boys stop, Vick was already shouting, one hand on either man's chest while McNab held back Lassie and Gus held Shawn.

"Carlton, my office. Mr. Spencer, in the conference room!" Vick ordered. "Now!"

Shawn was dragged toward the building by Gus first. He made general "I'll take you" motions over Gus's shoulder. Lassiter gave Juliet a baneful look, then shook himself free of McNab's grip and loped up the stairs.

"Are you all right, O'Hara?" Vick asked.

"Yeah," Juliet said, fingering her sore cheek. Her foundation would be covering bruises for a week, at least. "Carlton wasn't aiming for me; I just ended up in the way."

Vick nodded.

"McNab, you see what happened?"

"Well," Buzz said hesitantly, "Detectives O'Hara and Lassiter were having a pretty heated discussion, but nothing out of line, and then Shawn – Mr. Spencer – walked up, and next thing Lassiter took a swing at him. Detective O'Hara tried to block him and got hit herself, went down, Lassiter moved to assist, and Mr. Spencer took a swing. Detective Lassiter tried to collar him, Mr. Spencer resisted, and then you came out. It was just a scuffle."

"O'Hara?"

"I didn't really see anything after I was hit," Juliet said, her stomach fluttering involuntarily at the anger in Vick's brown eyes. "But Shawn was only trying to defend me, and Carlton did throw the first punch."

McNab nodded.

"And I don't suppose," Vick said, her eyes sliding back to Juliet, "you'd like to tell me what you two were fighting about."

"I gave the same speech to Marlowe that Carlton gave to Shawn," Juliet said, the fluttering in her stomach getting worse, "and Carlton read something into it I didn't intend. I was going to apologize, Chief, but-" Juliet hesitated. Carlton was by and far Vick's favorite, and Shawn was always in trouble as it was. "Shawn jumped in too quick," she finished lamely.

"And neither of you heard what Shawn said?"

McNab shook his head, but Vick's eyes hadn't left Juliet.

"Just the usual Shawn," Juliet said softly, feeling as if an invisible hand were quieting her voice.

"I want written statements from both of you," Vick said, and then walked into the police station.

Juliet went inside. She sat at her desk with a heavy heart and leaded stomach. She picked up her pencil and looked at Vick's office. The door was shut and the blinds closed. Juliet drummed the pencil against the page and glanced at the conference room. She could see Shawn through the blinds, tapping on his green Psych phone. She set the pencil down and opened Word.

After a few minutes, Carlton emerged from Vick's office. His shoulder holster was empty, and he wasn't wearing his badge on his belt.

Juliet rushed over to Carlton's desk as he removed something from the drawer.

"Carlton, I'm so sorry-"

"I don't want to hear it, O'Hara," Carlton snapped.

"I'll talk to Vick," Juliet began, though what she could say that could trump both eyewitnesses saying the Head Detective had thrown the first punch against a civilian contractor for a not-unusual remark she had no idea. That it had seemed a good idea at the time; that the thought Vick might actually take disciplinary action had never occurred to her: neither seemed like an adequate defense.

"You've done enough of that already."

Juliet watched him leave, straight-backed and radiating anger like a specter's chill aura. By the time she'd turned away, Vick was already in the conference room. Her conversation was short, and Shawn looked appropriately petulant. When Vick emerged, she looked at O'Hara.

"Written statement, I mean it," Vick ordered, then returned to her office.

Shawn came out of the conference room smiling.

"Three days without Lassie," Shawn said, approaching Juliet's desk as she sat down again. "You get to be lead on every case, request Psych as much as you want, no Lassifras taking over your briefings, and more to snack on than a packet of sunflower seeds on the road."

"I covered for you, Shawn," Juliet snapped, suddenly furious again. Her eyes were burning and no, she would not cry here in the bullpen. She had nothing to cry about. "What you said to Carlton was completely out of line."

"He had no right to be picking on my girlfriend, and I was only stating the obvious."

"It's not obvious," Juliet snarled back. She felt the guilt twist in her. It's what she'd as good as told Marlowe, even if she had meant it to disparage Marlowe's character, not Carlton's.

"Yes, it is, you said it yourself, and big picture: it's just a little suspension. I've been suspended so many times from so many places I can't keep track."

Shawn had, which was why he wouldn't understand what the suspension would mean to someone with Carlton's perfect record. The only other time he'd been suspended he'd been framed, and that had meant the suspension had been expunged.

"This is my fault," Juliet said.

"He threw the first punch," Shawn scoffed. "At me. Your _boyfriend_."

"I have to go," Juliet said, picking up her jacket as she stood up.

"Good, we can grab some coffee and those pineapple Danishes you like."

"No, Shawn, I'm going alone. I just—I just need to think about what I'm going to say, okay?" And with that, she fled. If Vick or Shawn protested, Juliet didn't hear. She just got in her car and drove.

She didn't notice the van following her until it rear-ended her at the stop sign. She swore at the unwelcome interruption. Distracted by her fury and her shame, she rifled through the glove compartment for her insurance information without paying any attention to the two men who emerged from the van. She didn't notice the ski masks until one opened her door and grabbed her by the hair, but by then it was too late. The needle had already been plunged into her shoulder, and the world faded to darkness.


	2. Orientation

**Story Notes:** 1) This story is a modern-day homage/redux of the concept found in the 1924 "The Hounds of Zaroff" by Richard Connell. 2) The Delancey Street Foundation restaurant is real. A worthier or nobler establishment would be hard to find. 3) My theory of Lucinda/Carlton is based solely on the fact Anne Dudek can't convey sincerity of emotion with any more subtlety or ability than Kirsten Stewart. 4) You may blame this on Loafer, who said that because I can string words together in a sentence, I should write Lassiet. It is not logic I could argue with.

**Two: Orientation  
**

Carlton awoke.

His head felt stuffed with cotton batting and the sunlight was too bright, his shoulder ached, and his back protested both the position he lay in and the rock digging in just above his thoracic vertebrae.

The rock.

Carlton startled, ignoring the discomfort of opening his eyes. He felt airy and foggy, but he was definitely in the woods. Judging by the aspen and coniferous trees – one of which was definitely a grand fir - and the verdant underbrush, he was far from Santa Barbara. He was still in his suit and tie, but his holster and backup gun were missing. The only thing next to him was a small camera: no water, no supplies.

Carlton picked up the video camera and pulled the screen flap open. When he pressed the power button, the camera came to life.

"Greetings, Detective Lassiter," said the man on the screen, the recorder's speakers making his nasal voice sound tinny and high. His blue eyes and large nose shared dominance over his narrow-mouthed face. "I have something that will interest you." The camera panned over a newspaper. It was dated three days in the future. Since time travel was impossible, that meant Carlton had been out three days. He could literally be anywhere, even Canada. The camera panned sideways, to three people tied and gagged on the grass: Juliet, Shawn, and Gus.

"These are my hostages," the man continued. "The rules for getting them back are simple. See, Detective, I operate a business. For a price, men who are bored with hunting dumb animals can hunt a far more interesting prey: men of resourcefulness and cunning, or instinct and preparedness. Men, in other words, like you. If you find me, I'll let your friends – not that that word really applies to Spencer and Guster here, and maybe not even O'Hara anymore – go. If my clients find you, they'll kill you and exchange your head for your id as a trophy, see?" The man held up Carlton's driver's license in front of the camera. "I would have preferred your badge, but you weren't wearing it. They get your secondary gun as well.

"You are allowed to kill them back. Encouraged, as a point of fact.

"Now here's the thing, Detective, I know that you are more than capable of just disappearing into the woods never to be seen again. You've been preparing for a post-apocalyptic horror as much as you've prepared for kidnapping by building up a tolerance to chloroform. Know that if you do, if I don't get some confirmation that you are playing the game, I will remove O'Hara's fingers one by one, then her forearms, upper arms, toes, feet, and so on - I'm sure you get the picture - until she dies of shock or there's nothing left to remove but her head.

"So, be seeing you, Detective."

The screen turned blue.

Carlton's ears were ringing, and his fingertips felt numb. Neither O'Hara, Spencer, or Guster were wearing blindfolds. The narrator and his men weren't wearing masks. The only reason a criminal let victims see his face was if he didn't have any intention of letting them live to identify him in the first place.


	3. The Cost of Living

**Chapter note:** From here on there is an entire carton of Easter eggs hidden in this fic. Of those who find them, half of you will be amused. The rest will realize exactly how screwed the gang is.

* * *

Juliet watched her captors move around the clearing that served as home base for their operation. That they were well-organized was an understatement: every member carried a radio and a semi-automatic rifle, they all wore camouflage, and the field units wore Kevlar. The guards patrolling the hostages also wore a long wand with two prongs at the end. The earth-colored tents were tidily kept in two rows behind the main pavilion. Inside the main pavilion there was a folding table that held a sprawling topographical map (the edges draped over the side of the table a bit), the trunks that stored both weapons and battery packs for the radios, and another small table that served as the leader's desk. The "mess tent" was off to the side, away from the main camp near the stand of trees that held the unit's food stores. For reasons Juliet couldn't discern, the containers of food had been suspended by a rudimentary pulley system between the trees themselves at a height of twenty feet or more.

The guards themselves were clearly professionals. They handled their guns with a practiced expertise, kept their gear in pristine order, and addressed each other and their leader with crisp respect. Not one of the men had so much as leered at her.

Everything screamed ex-military to Juliet, and that was not good.

The hostages were opposite the mess tent but still far from the trees, in cages made of chain-link panels held together by padlocks. The floor panels were covered by an earth-tone rubber mat, the ceiling panels with camouflage tarp. Juliet's cage was only five or six yards from the cage that held Shawn and Gus. Restroom arrangements were simple: every four hours they were handed a chamber pot and, with armed guards just outside, the side-panels of tarp were unrolled to give them precisely eight minutes of privacy. Then the panels were rolled up, the chamber pot removed, and hand-sanitizer provided. Food followed.

They were closer to the command pavilion than the trees. Juliet could hear everything that went on in the pavilion, which wasn't good in that it meant their captors didn't plan on them surviving to carry any tales to the authorities. It had, however, given her a chance to profile the group's leader.

She wasn't comforted by what she'd learned.

"You mind if I ask you a question?" she asked, leaning against one side of her cage as she watched the man, called "Ben" by his men, mark what were presumably his clients' locations on the central map.

"I'm a Pieces," Ben said without looking up from his work.

_What?_ She wasn't that desperate for a plan by a long shot, and even if she was, she highly doubted someone like Ben would fall for the "falling for your captor" ruse. He had to be joking, then, which didn't fit with the information she'd gathered so far - and this wasn't exactly the right situation for humor anyway. Juliet contemplated making herself look like less of a threat by flustering and denying that had been the question, but ultimately decided she couldn't possibly look like less of a threat than being kept in a cage in the middle of the woods surrounded by armed ex-military mercenaries loyal to the man she spoke to.

"You seem extremely intelligent, hyper-rational, and exacting," Juliet pressed on. There was no use not using profiling terms. She was a cop, and a man this competent had to know she'd been examining his behavior from the moment she woke up. Even if not all detectives utilized the discipline, she was Carlton's partner, and Ben absolutely knew Carlton owned everything the FBI had ever published on the subject and counted it as part of his top-five skills.

Ben looked up from is map, examining Juliet with his barbed-wire blue eyes. The flattery got his attention, all right.

"So why is it that a man as competent as you is holding us hostage instead of Carlton's mother and her lover, his sister, or Marlowe?" She held Ben's gaze steadily, an undertow of challenge in her question. It was information she needed, but she also needed to know exactly how vain this sociopath was.

Ben paused, clearly weighing his response.

"I was wondering when you'd ask," Ben said calmly, removing his reading glasses and folding them up. Shawn had already made a crack about the round, wire-framed glasses that Ben had completely ignored. Juliet suspected the man didn't view the glasses as a sign of weakness, of middle-aged farsightedness, but as a show of strength: glasses did make you look smarter.

"I am competent, Juliet," he continued, stepping away from his map, "and a competent hunter, above all else, knows his prey. If Carlton knew that his team was out there, looking for him, he wouldn't feel alone. He would feel part of an operation: constrained by the rules of a policeman on duty; duty-bound to assist his distant team members in apprehending the suspects _even if it meant_ taking certain risks with hostages, trusting his team members would have his back and thus no real harm would come to his mother or 'Lulu.'

"I simply can't have Carlton thinking of himself that way. My clients want thrill and danger, and I can't get that from an officer on duty. I need the violence in Carlton the law normally holds in check, which means I need him desperate."

Juliet couldn't breathe. She felt trapped by his snake-like stare, utterly devoid of any warmth or regret. She'd wondered how a short, slight man like Ben had been able to dominate the fit alpha-males that comprised his team, and now she knew.

"As for Marlowe, Carlton _is_ very fond of her, but she is ultimately his second choice: a worthy distraction to get over what he really wants, and an assurance to himself that he has already. For desperation, I need his _first_ choice. You." Ben's face smiled, and though his eyes didn't, Juliet felt released from his stare. Her knees felt weak, and not in the good way.

"You don't know that," Juliet said, putting every ounce of effort into keeping her voice from quavering. As with Vick at the police station, she felt like an invisible hand had turned down the volume. "You can't."

"I do, Juliet. You don't because Shawn, there, pointlessly exposed Carlton's brief dalliance with Lucinda in the most public way possible. She transferred away to avoid the gossip. If Marlowe hadn't come along, Carlton would have died of loneliness rather than take that kind of risk with _your_ career."

Ben returned to his map.

Juliet raised a hand to the gold pendant around her neck, a St. Michael's medallion given to her by her mother when she'd earned her MCJ. Carlton had been raised Catholic, but he didn't believe it beyond the use of God-centric colloquialisms. Still, Juliet said a brief prayer to St. Michael anyway, and one other prayer to the divinity she had heard Carlton swear to.

_Lady Justice, look out for him.  
_~*~

Carlton was desperately thirsty and his urine was amber colored, which meant he was running out of time. The man in the video would have dropped him no more than three days' distance from water, he knew. It would hardly be sport if the prey simply dehydrated to death.

He'd been heading downhill for nearly two days, stopping often to listen for water (or the men hunting him) and scouring the ground for animal tracks (or boot tracks). The nearest source of water was undoubtedly being watched, but Carlton didn't have any choice. He suspected that was precisely why he'd been left without a canteen.

His head hurt, and the temptation to just lie down and sleep regardless of the consequences was overwhelming. He'd stopped feeling hungry sometime the day before, his body reminding him only occasionally that the ketones it was producing weren't really food, merely substitutes to keep him from being overly distracted in his quest for the real thing.

Carlton appreciated the support, he really did.

If he met the hunters tomorrow he'd be too weak to do much of anything. He'd be killed, his head turned in for a trophy, and Juliet and the rest would be dead soon after.

There was, however, a way to bring the water to him.

He spent the afternoon laying his trap: finding the right tree, gathering wood and dried grass, and scrounging for rocks. He started trying to light his fire long before the light began to fade: all he had was his stainless steel watch back and a cherty rock he'd managed to bang into a proper edge. It took slicing his hand twice, enough tries to make both wrists ache like they were made of molten lead, a nearly-endless stream of muttered curses with two appeals to Sweet Lady Justice for aid, but just before dark he managed to get enough of a spark to start a fire. Carlton stoked the flame and then climbed into his chosen tree. He perched on a branch above his fire, dizzy and exhausted, and removed his tie.

Then he waited.

The fire drew a hunter almost immediately, a stocky fellow carrying a rifle and sweeping the scene in a way that most assuredly was not hunting for deer. Carlton tensed, steeled himself, and then pushed himself off the branch.

Gravity brought all of Lassiter's 150 pounds onto the hunter's back, driving them both to the ground and winding the hunter. Carlton heard the impact snap the finger on the trigger and possibly a few of the ones holding the gun. The hunter cried out, his arms pinned beneath him by the fall. Carlton didn't wait, digging his knee into the man's pack and wrapping his silk tie around his opponent's throat like a garrote.

Then he held on while the hunter made choked sounds and attempted to struggle. The silk abraded his palms and the ache in his wrist made it hard to hold on, but after ten seconds or so it was over. The hunter went slack beneath him.

If Carlton let go, the hunter would wake up almost immediately. Carlton was dehydrated and hungry, and the hunter wasn't. That contest could only end one way, even with the hunter's hand broken.

Carlton pulled both ends of the tie into one hand and slid off the hunter, pulling up with his arm to maintain the pressure. With his other hand he shoved dirt into the fire, dousing it. He didn't need anyone else coming to investigate the light. The forest darkened, the world shrouded in black as Carlton's eyes adjusted. Carlton edged back onto his opponent, mouthing the lyrics to the Parting Glass to himself to keep time. The song was four minutes long, long enough to make sure his opponent stayed down for good. His cotton-mouthed thirst and the ringing in his ears were maddening countermelodies.

Carlton let go, sliding the tie loose and setting it aside. Then he unzipped the man's pack. Lassiter felt what he wanted almost immediately: plastic bottles. He opened the lid. The water smelled sweeter than perfume, and the first sip tasted better than the most expensive champagne. His muscles stopped listening to him during that first sip, and even though he was almost pouring the water down his throat, he still couldn't drink fast enough. Only the knowledge that there was food in the pack as well stopped him from downing the second bottle.

He was alive. Alive, with water and food and equipment, and he'd purchased O'Hara one more day.

Alive, and a cold-blooded killer. Lassiter's hands shook as he unwrapped the meal bar he'd pulled from the hunter's pack. He'd killed once before, but only in the heat of the moment, impelled by duty and dire need. Nothing like this—

Madeline Spencer had as good as said in her evaluation of him that Lassiter was capable of murder if he ever thought it necessary in the cause of justice, and he'd always known it himself even if he'd never admitted it to anyone. Now there was proof.

He couldn't think this way. _O'Hara_, Lassiter reminded himself. If he hesitated when he came across the rest of his pursuers, they wouldn't hesitate to end him – they'd paid for the privilege – and then that would be the end of her, Guster, and even Spencer.

Carlton shoved the sick feeling away, reciting police codes in his mind until his hands steadied.

He'd purchased a day of life and a day without torture for O'Hara, proof he was playing the game to the man in the video.

It wouldn't be long before he'd have to buy another day, and when that happened, he had to be ready.


	4. The Man Behind the Curtain

8:15, and the sun had fully set over an hour ago. They'd been transported not only out of California, but completely outside the Pacific Time Zone. Shawn had tried asking the guards for the time to update his watch, but his completely reasonable request had been met with stony silence. So had his request for a Nintendo DS, or even an old-school Gameboy.

He'd even take Bejeweled at this point. There wasn't any urgent danger: the mercenaries weren't going to hurt the hostages, they needed the hostages to control Lassie. Most of the days had been spent looking for some sign someone in the group wasn't a killer and could be leveraged (no luck so far, but that was what you could expect of a business that set up human beings to be killed by bored rich people), or something Shawn could use to make the Leader Guy angry enough to screw up. That had been a total waste. He'd never once heard the man even so much as raise his voice, even after Shawn had made that incredibly witty Harry Potter zinger.

He needed leverage. He had to rescue Jules and Gus, and how the Hell he was going to find Lassie in the woods he had yet to figure out. Shawn would cross that bridge when he came to it, as his Dad would have said if he were here.

The moon was out, and Jules was still staring at the only unobstructed view they had of the woods. He hadn't heard whatever Leader Guy had said to her that afternoon during their conversation. Whatever it was, it had shaken her up pretty badly. She'd turned away from the tent with the table in it and stared out the chain link of her cage. She'd barely moved since, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, sometimes eating - but never really letting go of her necklace for more than a few seconds at a time.

"You look beautiful in the moonlight," Shawn said softly. She'd braided her greasy, unwashed hair behind her, and in the moonlight it looked as soft and fresh as ever.

"Not now, Shawn," Jules said, not even looking at him. Still staring at the trees.

"So, uh," Shawn said, fishing for conversation topics, "what's your necklace?" He'd seen her wear it plenty of times before, he could picture the pendant in his mind, but he didn't know why she'd be clinging to it now.

"St. Michael, patron saint of the police," Jules said. "My mother gave it to me when I graduated."

"You're going to make it home okay," Shawn assured her. "I'll figure a way out of this." Wolves howled in the background, distant and cold voices in the chilly night air. "Maybe we'll even ride out of here on them, like ElfQuest." He smiled, his hands shoved in his pockets.

"Carlton's out there alone, Shawn, with wolves and worse." Her voice was trembling, but not quite with fear and not quite with tears: tears for fears, maybe. Ha. "He could be starving," Jules continued, "broken his leg. Shot. In a trap. Maybe even dead already. And the last thing I did was throw him under a bus to keep you out of trouble!" Jules raised a hand to her mouth, the other still gripping the medallion, her shoulders shaking even if he couldn't hear her sobs. "This is all my fault. I'm a horrible partner."

"Jules, it's not your fault," Shawn said, pressing himself as close to the fencing as he could. He couldn't reach out, but he pressed his palms to the chain link. "These guys picked Lassie and set this up a long time ago."

"But I wasn't paying attention. I was so busy concentrating on us fighting that I fell for a bump-and-grab, I was oblivious, and if they didn't have me then Carlton could just run away!"

"Even if that was true," Shawn argued, "and they somehow couldn't get a hold of you, they just would have picked someone else to use. And they still would have got Gus and I."

Jules was shaking her head, her hand still pressed to her mouth and her eyes closed.

"What's gotten into you?" Shawn asked. "I've never seen you like this. What did Leader Dude say?"

"It's not for your ears," Jules choked out.

"'Not for my ears'?" Shawn repeated incredulously. That sounded like something Lassie would say, along with "Sweet Lady Justice" and "whackadoo." "What does that even mean? What did he tell you?"

"It doesn't matter, Shawn!" Jules wrung out, somewhere between screaming and despair. "What matters is that Carlton is going to die out there, alone and afraid and in pain thinking I got him suspended because I cared more about keeping you from getting yelled at when you deserved it. I'm not going to get to say goodbye or that 'I'm sorry' and neither is he. And-" Jules pressed her hand to her mouth again and turned her back to Shawn, leaning on the fence and still looking out into the trees even though she couldn't see them any more than he could.

Shawn walked over to Gus, who was propped up in the corner of their cage with his jacket draped across his shoulders and knees like a blanket.

"You hear that?" he asked, sitting down next to Gus. "Jules has given up."

"I think that was the point, Shawn," Gus replied, watching the dim shapes of the patrol guards. Leader Guy had already retired to his tent, which was as plain and unadorned as the other sleeping tents. "There's more than one way to eliminate a threat."

"Yeah," Shawn agreed, thinking of Yin and Yang. "We need out of this game, to get back on our own turf."

"And how are we going to do that?" Gus countered. "There's, like, fifty heavily armed guards running around."

"During the day, yeah, but now there's only six of them. Everyone else is asleep, even the Little Guy. It's dark, it'll be harder for them to see us. Once we're in the woods, all we have to do is meet up with Lassie and head downriver towards civilization. These guys would never risk exposure by getting seen by witnesses: that's why they wore ski masks when they grabbed us."

"Okay," Gus agreed without really agreeing like he always did. "How are we going to get out of this cage in the first place?"

"Gus, don't be Ilan Mitchell-Smith in 'Weird Science.' That would technically, in this situation, make _me_ Kelly LeBrock, which is just weird. Huh." Shawn shook his head at the mental picture. "I got it covered, buddy."

Shawn stood and walked over to the cage's door and shouted for the nearest guard's attention.

"Hey, hey, buddy! I know we don't get our last bathroom break for an hour, but I have to go now!" Shawn did a variation of the pee-pee dance. "Muchos neccessititos. Right now."

"Then pee out the fence," the guard grunted. "Your girlfriend's not watching." The guard continued on his route. Shawn slammed the fence in mock defeat.

"Great job, Shawn," Gus said cynically. Shawn smirked. The guards would think they'd cut his plan off at the knees, and that Shawn would never be stupid enough to press on when the real bathroom-break came.

When 9:00 rolled around, Shawn stood next to the door. One guard approached and began rolling down the tarp panel on Jules' side. Shawn waited as the second guard, holding the chamber pot in one hand, inserted his key in the lock and turned it.

Shawn bolted, slamming the door outwards and into the guard as hard as he could, pinning the guard between the fencing and the door. He slammed the guard again. The first guard dropped the tarp panel. Shawn grabbed the barrel of the guard's gun as it cleared the corner, and used the man's grip on the weapon to pull him headlong into the cage.

"Free Jules," Shawn barked to Gus. Gus dived for the keys, and Jules' scream of pain rent the night. Shawn looked over, his struggle with the second guard forgotten, to see the third guard poke her again with the long wand he wore, now obviously an electric prod. Jules screamed again.

A sharp blow hit him in the base of his spine, turning his legs to nothing but a mass of hot tingles. He heard Gus being shoved – or maybe kicked – back inside. A rough hand grabbed his collar and threw him into the cage. Shawn twisted to see Little Guy himself holding a small black rod. Little Guy flicked his wrist, the rod extended into a nightstick. Shawn tried to get his legs to move, but they weren't interested. Little Guy stepped forward and grabbed Shawn's arm, slamming him again into the cage's wall.

Shawn couldn't get his legs to move, but he could feel the sharp, snapping blow to the inside of his knee that dropped his left leg. Little Guy's hand was on his collar, and the throw into the side wall winded him as hard as the last. Shawn raised his hands, trying to grip the chain mail to rise, trying desperately to get his legs to respond and enough air in his lungs to quiet Gus's shrill screams. Pain blossomed from his rib cage, first the right and then the left side.

Shawn gave up on moving, and pulled his arms up to defend his head. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and the nightstick came down again across his shoulders. Shawn drew his knees up – the last thing he needed was a bruised kidney out here – crying out, "Uncle, uncle, okay, I give," with what breath he garnered. The nightstick kept coming, over and over again, Jules was screaming, too, and Little Guy wasn't even angry. His face wore the same calm expression he'd worn talking to Jules. Shawn was grabbed one more time, thrown into the wall, and the nightstick cracked across Shawn's cheek in a blow that literally had him seeing stars.

Shawn dropped. Every extremity to his core was a seething, churning ocean of pain. He was never using the expression "striking a nerve" again.

"Now that we understand each other," Little Guy said, breathing hard from the physical exertion. "Please remember that it is Carlton I need to control. I only need Juliet for that. I can control her with Burton as easily as I can with you, Shawn. I really _don't_ care if you die out here." He leaned down, his mouth a mere fraction of an inch from Shawn's ear. "And I know about your mother's memory."

Ben left the cage, and the guards shut it deferentially behind him.

"Shawn, are you okay?" Jules asked.

"Yeah," Shawn gasped, even though he most certainly wasn't. "Could use a pineapple smoothie."

"This isn't their first rodeo, Shawn," Jules said, her voice filled with worry and admonition. "You can't do that again."

Shawn didn't respond to that, and just tried to breathe.


	5. The Shape of Things to Come

Guns were useless: a weapon being fired could be heard for almost a mile in this woodland silence, and the sound of a gunshot would bring the man in the video's clients down around his head like Chicken Little's sky. Lassiter didn't like it, but just because firearms were his favorite weapon didn't mean they were his _only_ weapon.

Carlton had pulled the previous hunter's gun apart, scattering the pieces as far as he could. He had no intention of leaving behind anything that could be used against him by the rest of the hunting party. He'd taken the dead man's jacket, bedroll, pack, flint and striker, food, water, compass, and - perhaps most importantly of all - his map. Lassiter was in southern Idaho, between the Boise, Salmon, and Sawtooth National Forests. He was as far from civilization as it was possible to be in the United States, but at this time of year the area _was_ being monitored by the FWP for forest fires. It was a remote possibility for help, but it at least existed.

The dead hunter had had a bowie knife as well, which Lassiter also kept. He had it now, held securely in one hand.

Once he'd found his approximate position on the topographical map, finding the nearest source of water (which would also confirm or deny his guess at his location) had been simple. And, as he'd suspected, it was being watched.

Lassiter advanced slowly, stepping first with his toes, as if he was clearing a crime scene and didn't know if the perpetrator was still present. The hunter in question had set up a blind facing the pond. He was focused on the water, doubtless counting on his hearing to alert him if Carlton was approaching from behind.

Foolish, to assume a city-bred cop wouldn't know how to move silently outdoors.

The man's pack was at his side, not on his back. Carlton hardly dared to breathe, easing up to his target. He raised his other hand. It wasn't hunting season, and a game hunter wouldn't be watching the water this late in the day, anyway. No chance of mistakes: the man before him meant to kill him. Lassiter had to remember that.

Carlton's fingertips felt numb. He was going to kill again.

_Don't think._

Lassiter darted forward, slipping his hand under the man's jaw and jerking him backward in one motion, a modified choke that bared the hunter's throat. A stab and jerk, tearing flesh and a spray of blood that even the goriest horror film always managed to downplay; the stink of blood and piss and worse as he lowered the gasping, gurgling body to the ground. What was in the body in life was outside it in death, another detail the movies overlooked. Carlton turned and put his hands on his knees. He wretched as he never had at a crime scene, no matter how old the decomp. There wasn't much to come up, mostly bile.

Carlton spat. He raised his hand to wipe his mouth, then immediately lowered it when he saw the dark red covering it.

His ears were ringing.

_Don't think._

The second murder was definitely worse.

_O'Hara._ _O'Hara. This is for O'Hara, and Guster, and the asshat who is a civilian no matter what his character. The man in the video will not hesitate, neither will these men who have paid to kill you, so MOVE, Lassiter._

Move.

Step one: clean his weapon and put it away so he'd have both hands free.

Carlton rolled the corpse over with his foot and cut a swatch from the man's coat to use as a towel. He wiped the blade on the corpse's sleeve, and then wiped his hands as best he could on the exposed lining. He finished up with his impromptu rag, and only when he was sure the blade would not rust did he slip it in the sheath.

Step two: assess the supplies. The man's bag was with him in the blind. Carlton kept the MREs and the water, the flint and striker, the hunting knife, and the belt. The rest he shredded and scattered about. He disassembled the gun as well, scattered the bullets. Leave nothing behind anyone else could use.

The man also had a small black electronic device in his bag. The previous man had had one as well, but it had been smashed beyond recognition when Carlton had landed on him. Now he saw it was a small handheld receiver. It was probably for calling for medical help in case of emergency. It wasn't a satellite phone, which meant that there was a home base somewhere in the area – doubtless where the man in the video was keeping O'Hara and the other two.

Step three: next move.

Carlton looked down at his watch. Two in the afternoon, Mountain Time.

The man in the video was a businessman. Letting a bunch of bored rich guys loose in the woods unsupervised was nothing short of begging for disaster. There would be the ex-big-game hunters who had moved on to more diverting prey, the ex-military sociopaths who had hunted men long enough they no longer cared for anything else, true, but there would also be those with more money than sense: men who had bitten off more than they could chew; men who would run right into a camp of civilians on family vacation; men who would be "killed back" as the man in the video encouraged his victims to do. If one of those rich men disappeared inexplicably, or if his body was found in the middle of the woods, there would be an investigation. Press. Family members with enough money or power to buy the most elite the FBI had to offer. If enough rich men disappeared or were found in the middle of nowhere, perhaps even the Behavioral Analysis Unit would be invited.

The man in the video had to have some kind of clean-up crew. It was possible he just erased the digital trail connecting him to his clients, but erasing a digital trail wasn't always enough these days. Not if the people who wanted answers had enough clout.

It would be better if the bodies were removed and staged, made to seem like some open-and-shut matter like a car accident or robbery gone bad. It meant someone would have to come for the corpses, or at least be checking on the clients to make sure they didn't leave any witnesses. And if there was a body detail, that body detail would have to be directed somehow.

Carlton grabbed the corpse's collar and dragged him out of the blind. He adjusted his grip, then gave the corpse a lift and a shove. The dead weight rolled a little downhill. Gravity pulled some of the blood from the corpse, like an animal being kosher-bled. To an investigator, it was obvious it was a body dump.

Lassiter didn't care. Erasing his trail as he went, he backed his way up to a suitable tree. Then he scaled the branches. The camouflaged coat he'd pilfered from his first kill blended into the foliage, and his black suit pants were so covered in dirt and filth they didn't stand out as much as they would have clean.

Then he waited: watched, with the patience of a detective.

The figure in digital camouflage that emerged from the underbrush was obviously not one of the hunting party. He was riding a horse for one thing; and he wore a bulletproof vest with a taser, a knife, and two radios clipped to his belt. He carried a P-90. His slim saddlebags couldn't hold more a couple days' worth of food and water. Even though there was a bedroll tied behind the saddle seat, there was nothing that suggested this man was planning anything other than returning to a camp.

The horse – a beautiful chestnut gelding – snorted when he smelled the blood, but did not halt his advance or shy in any way. Well-trained, probably taught to only accept commands from selected riders, or to only come to certain whistle.

The rider slid from his horse, then held up a hand and gave it a command. The police dogs the SBPD used were trained in German, but the command didn't match what Carlton had been taught was "stay" or "wait" in that language. It made sense, if the guards were used to dealing with police and military targets, that they'd select a less-obvious way of ensuring others couldn't give their animals orders.

Carlton watched as the rider approached the corpse, carefully surveying the scene as much as the body. The rider reached up to his ear and tapped, presumably to activate an earpiece.

"Stanhope's dead," the rider said, looking up the hill at the scattered ammunition and destroyed blind. "I gotta say, HQ, I like this guy's style." HQ: Headquarters. Lassiter was right.

_Thank you,_ Carlton thought, to both the compliment and the information. The rider was almost below him.

The man's face changed, reacting silently to whatever the individual on the other side of the radio said. Carlton dropped from his branch.

The rider was smarter than the first hunter, or else better-trained, because he dodged to the side almost as soon as Carlton moved.

"Easy," the rider said as Carlton swung at him, "The boss doesn't like it when we rough up the marks."

Lassiter ignored the injunction and swung twice more, straight-from-the-Academy moves to measure the other's fighting style. The rider blocked them easily; MMA-style blocks that weren't crisp enough to be ex-military. Private security background, then, or just a mercenary. Carlton switched it up, mixing the bare-knuckle and collar-and-elbow of his youth with the Academy's teachings. His gangly build gave him a longer reach than most men, and Lassiter had learned to use it to his advantage.

Fighting was never as graceful as the movies made it out to be: lots of crashing into things and moves that could only be described as "scrabbling," nor did it ever last as long.

"Give it up, I don't want to hurt you," the rider gasped, staggering back from a bull-rush that had slammed Carlton into a tree, a bizarre reversal of fortune since Carlton was usually uttering that same line to a perp.

"No chance," Carlton said, drawing his knife as he rose to his feet. That man knew where "HQ" was, how to cut out the hunting party entirely and save the hostages. How he could be a cop and do a cop's job, not this… whatever it was they had planned for him.

The rider drew his knife.

"I don't get paid if I kill you," the rider said, moving backward as they circled. "There's no self-defense here and you're too good a cop to just murder someone."

"Maybe I'm not that good a cop," Carlton growled, his eyes never leaving his opponent. If this rider wanted to play mind games, so be it, he was still going to end up captured and telling Carlton what he needed to know.

"There's no jail, and you can't afford to be dragging me around. You're not going to apprehend anyone here." The rider danced out of the way as Carlton lashed out with the blade twice. "Don't be stupid."

Carlton reversed the blade and threw it in one gesture, the knife sinking into the man's thigh, and Lassiter rushed him in the moment of distraction the pain afforded. He caught the rider in a mare, knocking both legs into the air and slamming his opponent into the ground.

As soon as he heard the wet crunch, Carlton knew something was wrong.

He felt for a pulse, but the eyes were a give-away. Carlton pushed his hand under his opponent's head.

A rock. The risk of fighting in an uncontrolled area, and why gyms and dojos had sparring mats in the first place.

Two kills in ten minutes. Three in two days.

Carlton tried to breathe as he closed his opponent's eyes. His eyes and throat burned as if he was inhaling smoke. If he hadn't been before, he was certainly a monster now.

* * *

Juliet had never been as relieved as when the guards brought back the first corpse, strangled and stripped of supplies. She wasn't one to take satisfaction in the death of evil men, but the fact Ben's client was dead meant that Carlton was alive.

Now the guards brought two more bodies, one with his throat slit and the other with the back of his head bashed in. The second one wore the same outfit as the guards. He was missing the radio all the guards wore, as well as the second one the guards took into the field.

"Well," Ben said, his already thin mouth thinning even further in displeasure. "We'll just have to stop _this_ right now." He looked over at the com tech and held out his hand. The com tech hurriedly gave Ben a handheld. Ben approached Juliet's cage and snapped his fingers. One of the guards handed Ben his electric prod. Juliet tensed. She had a pretty good idea what was going to happen next.

"Carlton," Ben said into the handheld, his voice somehow clipped and drawling at the same time.

"Carlton, I know you can hear me, so pick up the radio." Ben lifted his finger from the button and waited, then pushed down again. "You pride yourself on your stubbornness, but now really isn't the time." When no response was forthcoming, he grasped the electric prod.

Juliet could have moved to the other side of the cage, but she had no doubt the other guard would just zap her with his prod if she did. Running would only make her look weak, afraid.

She was very afraid. But if Ben wanted her to look it, to sound it, she wouldn't give him that. Instead, Juliet covered her mouth and braced herself for the pain, choking the urge to cry out. If he wanted to use her screams to lure Carlton's attention, she'd be damned in Hell first.

She could take the pain. She was SBPD.

"You made a wise choice with Juliet, Carlton," Ben said, his calm voice laced with minute quantities of exasperation. He nodded to the guard next to Shawn's cage. The guard pointed his weapon at Shawn. The psychic detective was still subdued, curled up on the floor of his cage after the beating he'd received at Ben's hands the night before. He sat up when he saw the gun aimed at him.

_I can control her as easily with Burton as I can with you, Shawn._ They both remembered Ben's warning.

She couldn't give Ben what he wanted, it could only weaken Carlton's position, make it less likely he would survive— She couldn't sacrifice Carlton to save Shawn, she simply couldn't do that again— Juliet bit her palm, muffling the scream as Ben zapped her again. _Please, please,_ she babbled to St. Michael, _please don't make me choose who dies, not like this, don't make me choose._

"She's very brave," Ben continued.

The guard fired a warning shot next to Shawn. Ben raised an eyebrow, his mouth quirking as if impressed. His gaze trapped her again, devoid of all emotion and guilelessly earnest: terrifying, hypnotic, snake-like. Like before.

"Jules," Shawn pleaded. "He means it."

Ben touched her with the prod again, and this time, Juliet allowed herself to scream. She bowed her head, unable to look Ben in the eye any longer. She felt filthy, cheap. She could shower till she bled and she'd never excise the rottenness.

"What?" Carlton's voice was furious.

"You may kill as many of my clients as you see fit," Ben said, handing the prod back to the guard who'd given it to him, "but my men are off-limits. For every one of them you kill, I will have Juliet raped. Just because I don't allow recreational sexual assaults does _not_ mean I don't have employees who are willing. Do you understand?"

Juliet stared at the ground, feeling her eyes burn. She was a police officer: being raped by a criminal, maybe even one she'd put away herself, was a worst-case scenario she'd already prepared herself for. She'd already accepted it could happen, decided what she'd do if it did, how she'd cope, the choice she'd make if she got pregnant. Juliet had made her peace with that vulnerability endemic to being a woman in a patriarchal society that glorified domination, and promised herself she wouldn't show her fear when, if, that day came.

But she wasn't afraid. She wasn't in any danger of being raped because Lassiter, her partner, would accept the odds being even more against him rather than pay that price.

And once again, she was the tool to make those odds uneven.

She hated Ben more than anyone in the world, save herself.

"You listen to me." Carlton's voice was a basso pulse over the handheld's speakers. "If you or any of your degenerates lays so much as a hand on Juliet, I'll kill you all. That's a _promise._"

"All units," Ben said, unconcerned, "as you just heard, our communications have been compromised. Radio silence except for emergencies, and cycle back to camp for the new frequency."

Ben walked back to his map. The guard who had brought the corpses went with him.

"Jules, I will _not_ let_-_" Shawn began, an empty promise from his chain-link prison.

"Shut _up_, Shawn!" Juliet heard her own voice, laced with fear and fury and loathing, as if it was coming from someone else. "Just shut up," she repeated, more quietly. She pressed her forehead into her hands.

"Jules," Shawn repeated.

Juliet turned her back on him.

_Please, Sweet Lady Justice, please. Bring Carlton back safe._

* * *

The fourth hunter surprised him.

Carlton had barely slept since he'd woken up in the woods. He didn't dare sleep in the day, and his nights were little more than a series of brief naps: roused from sleep by needing to shift position on the hard ground, by shivering himself awake in the cold, by a forest noise that sounded too much like an approaching predator, and, of course, by his own heart racing in his chest. There was no coffee, not even an energy drink, and it was inevitable that eventually his body would collapse out from under him and demand some Stage 4 sleep.

The fourth night it did.

The fifth day he opened his eyes to bright sunlight and hyper-aware alertness, his heart pounding and his arm radiating bright pain. Carlton rolled away, and heard something impact the ground behind him. Lassiter twisted, pulling himself up and behind the tree. Two arrows were lodged in the dirt where he'd slept. One had grazed his arm, the other missed by inches. The wind was blowing, rattling the evergreen branches and whispering through the brush: it had saved his life by destroying the hunter's shot.

Carlton peeked around the tree. He could see the hunter across the clearing, a small patch of woods that didn't belong. He had a distance weapon and Carlton didn't. Lassiter needed to eliminate that advantage first.

Keeping his breathing even, Carlton backed away from the tree, leaving his supplies behind. He could always come back for them later, or start over with this hunter's gear. They were replaceable, unlike his life. His arm was bleeding, the grazing arrow had cut skin, but Carlton ignored it. In this instance, a blood trail would only help him.

Lassiter crouched down, sliding into and under the underbrush, keeping the tree between him and the hunter. He moved as quietly as possible then, when there was too much undergrowth for the hunter to have a clear line of sight, Carlton stepped behind another tree and snapped a branch. He drew his knife and waited.

The hunter came after a few moments, sweeping with his bow, an arrow nocked on the string. Carlton tensed, waiting as the hunter advanced. The hunter slid past him, and Carlton ducked toward another tree. He shifted his grip on the blade and threw it, the blade thunking solidly into the man's back. The hunter cried out, dropping to his knees. Carlton closed the distance between them, putting one hand on the hunter's shoulder and pulling the bow away with the other before tossing it aside.

The hunter gasped, gurgling. Carlton had hit a lung. The hunter tried to roll over, and Carlton knelt, putting a knee in his back and grabbing his arm.

"You-" the hunter gasped. Carlton followed the man's arm down. He felt a handgun in the man's failing grasp. Lassiter pulled it free, and then used it as a club to knock his opponent out. Carlton pulled his knife free from the man's body. Blood frothed and seeped around the wound.

Before, Carlton would have been horrified. He would have taken his victory and fled.

But now, Lassiter had a message to send.

* * *

Juliet was woken by a shrill sound, somewhere between a scream and crying: Gus and Shawn. Juliet opened her eyes and rolled over, the horrified expressions bringing her instantly into police officer alertness. She levered herself to her feet, her fingers curling around the chain link panels.

The body detail was bringing back another corpse. Shawn and Gus could see inside the gray tarp, even though she couldn't yet. Ben left the command tent, approaching the grim-faced guards.

When the corpse came into view, Juliet saw why: massive overkill. Not even dental records could identify what Carlton had left behind. Juliet swallowed, tasting copper in the back of her throat, and forced herself to take a deep breath. Revulsion wouldn't help Carlton.

Help Carlton. There was only one reason for Carlton to savage the corpse that way. She drew another breath and forced her face into calmness.

She made her voice mocking.

"I guess you underestimated Carlton's viciousness, Ben. Still think making him angry was a good plan?"

Ben looked up from the body, his eyes meeting hers.

He was afraid.


	6. Every Man for Himself

Carlton kept the fourth's belt. The man wasn't heavy, but Carlton was svelte, and by hooking the new belt together with the belt he'd taken before, he could tether himself by the waist to a tree branch. Carlton tightened the belt one last time, testing the strength of the leather, before leaning back on the large branch he'd chosen to nest in. The knots and divots in the wood weren't comfortable, but he stood less of a chance of being surprised up here than he did on the ground.

He was also less tempting to non-human predators. The first blow to the head was free, but the rest spattered and arced. Lassiter had cleaned the blood off as best he could without actually washing his clothes, but he knew he still reeked of it.

Carlton could smell it on himself.

_No. No thinking that way._

He'd been stopping his thoughts all day: thoughts of the gunshot followed by Juliet crying out in pain, thoughts of faceless guards and "recreational sexual assaults" with only the man in the video's word he didn't allow them, thoughts of the man in the video taking retribution from Juliet for the message Carlton had sent to warn him against that selfsame action. Thoughts that even if he managed to rescue Juliet and the rest, they'd never be able to forgive him for what he'd done. Thoughts that he'd never be able to forgive himself. Thoughts of wrapping his fingers around the man in the video's neck and squeezing until those blue eyes turned gray in death.

_That won't help._

_That won't help._

That wouldn't help, as darkness as black as despair started to settle in around him, the forest's night-life taking up their various songs in the gloaming. Lassiter was whittling out the weak, the ones who had paid for the thrill, but soon the real hunters would be on him. Behind the real hunters would be the man in the video and his men: ready to torture Juliet if Carlton fought back directly; ready to kill her and Psych if he succeeded against the hunters.

They were ruthless, and he had to be as well. He couldn't afford regrets or hesitation, nor to lose his head in the fire of revenge.

Carlton had to be cold, as cold as the first kiss of winter, and just as deadly. A weapon, not a man. Not a cop. Someone to be feared, even by a mercenary gang.

Someone who would brutally beat another man to death until there was nothing left of his face.

The man in the video wouldn't be expecting that, and it would make him reconsider. Pause. Hesitate. Expose weakness that Juliet, a police-trained interrogator, could exploit. If nothing else it would make him doubt his own plans.

His doubts would give Carlton an advantage, however slight.

Lassiter closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. He shivered in the cold air and his stomach growled, unhappy with nothing but a meal bar for dinner and an MRE for lunch. He missed his own bed at home, the warmth of the California fall, his well-stocked kitchen. Carlton wanted to close his eyes knowing that when he opened them this would all be a bad dream.

_That won't help._

Carlton pushed the weakening thoughts from his mind. From now until this was over, if O'Hara was to be saved, he was the steel knife without sheath - and he had to remember that.

* * *

Shawn had never been helpless before. In every situation there had always been a way out: someone to manipulate, something clever on his tongue to extricate himself, some flash of memory to show him what to do, or sometimes even someone on the outside to swoop in to his rescue. In the cage, every fiber of his body sore from the remorseless beating he'd received, staring down the barrel of Ben's henchman's gun: there had been nothing. Ben's men were too well-disciplined to infuriate into carelessness (they knew that trick, too, from victims who had been captured and killed before); they were too well cared-for for revolt; and they were more frightened of their leader than any voodoo (and Shawn couldn't blame them, he really couldn't).

No lies to tell, nothing to do, no one to come save him.

There had been only the knowledge that this time he was really going to die. That everything he'd ever been, everything he could ever be - it would all disappear.

Unless Jules stopped defying Ben and did as she was told, hollering into the radio so Lassie would pay attention (and ignoring your enemy was a stupid thing to do, anyway, in Shawn's opinion, and he'd been the one to bring both Yin and Yang down).

And Jules had. When reminded that this was real, that it was Shawn's life or her pride, she had chosen Shawn.

But now she wouldn't look at him. Her fingertips rarely wandered far from her necklace. Sometimes she kept vigil over the forest. Mostly she watched Ben keep track of his clients and his mercenaries. She didn't look defeated anymore, hadn't since she'd seen The Corpse. (Don't think about it, don't think about what Lassie – bumbling, incompetent, helpless without him _Lassie_ – did to another human being in anger. Not when Shawn had made the man so angry so often himself, as a form of entertainment.

(Don't think about the fact this isn't the first time Lassie has killed, or about all those times IA or Vick made comments about Lassie discharging his weapon too many times, all the times Gus joked about the man's violence.)

(Don't think about all the times Gus wasn't joking.)

(Don't think about violence, Gus screaming and the nightstick, cold eyes in an expressionless face.)

(Don't think about the fear.)

(Don't think about how Gus had helped him block out the fear when Yang first surfaced, about how airplane props and a King Kong impersonation wouldn't help now, about how everything before had always seemed like nothing really bad could ever happen to him no matter how bad the situation got.)

(Don't think about the nightstick, or that nasal voice whispering, "I know about your mother's memory," part intimidation and part knowing collusion. The implicit threat to tell Juliet, insinuated in purred consonants and drawled vowels, knowing that Shawn and his talents – his real talents – would understand.)

Shawn shook himself, snapping himself out of the dark whirlpool in his mind. He blinked twice, as if he was receiving a vision, then started to raise a hand to his head. The pain made him wince almost immediately. It was dark, the wildlife sounding in the distance, and Jules wasn't even looking at him. Gus was watching him from beneath his jacket, curled up on the rubber mat that served as a floor. They'd be given sleeping bags with the final toilet call: apparently giving the hostages hypothermia was a no-no.

"Jules," Shawn said again, as low as he could without the guards hearing. "Lassie's doing fine. I know you've got a plan, but I can't see it all."

"Neither can I, Shawn," Jules said, propped up in the corner of her cage. Ben had retired; she was watching the woods now. "It's not my plan."

"Then what are you watching for?" Shawn asked, thoroughly confused. He sure as Hell didn't have a plan, Gus didn't, and Lassie didn't seem to have a plan so much as a mental breakdown in progress.

"An opportunity," Juliet said. "Get some sleep, Shawn."

"We should talk about this," Shawn insisted. He wanted Jules to look away from the forest, to look at him. To see him. To depend on him the way she had before.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"He threatened-" Shawn protested, but Jules cut him off.

"That's not going to happen."

"You can't know that! There is something seriously Wrong and Not Okay about this guy, and my psychic senses are telling me he doesn't make idle threats." His psychic senses, and every ounce of soft tissue in his body.

"Ben is nothing more than a bully," Jules said dismissively. "He makes people think he's smarter and tougher than everyone else, but he can't predict everything."

"Oh… kay," Shawn said, not really sure how to take Jules' sudden change in perspective, especially when it was so opposite his own. They couldn't just sit here, obviously, they had to do something – but Shawn didn't think Ben was "just a bully" anymore than Pierre Despereaux was "just an art thief." (Except Despereaux was amazing and had a "special fondness" for Shawn, his kindred spirit, and Ben was absolutely terrifying with a bizarre fixation on Lassie.)

(Who, after caving that guy's face in, just might be Ben's kindred spirit in savage violence contained in an illusion of civilization.)

(Don't think about it.)

Jules didn't have anything more to say, and Shawn couldn't think of anything to change that.

"Shawn?" Jules finally asked.

"Yes?" Shawn asked eagerly, standing closer to the chain link in his eagerness for Jules's attention. She turned her head to look at him.

"Why didn't you see this coming?"

"You know my powers don't work that way," Shawn said with a charming smile. "And I can't read Ben at all."

"Convenient," Jules replied, something odd in her tone Shawn didn't like, "for him."

"I never claimed to see the future," Shawn said, bordering on the edge of honesty, "just the past and the present."

Jules nodded, looking back out to the forest.

"You're sure Carlton's okay?"

"Absolutely. Well, as okay as Lassie ever is," Shawn said, falling back on humor as a balm for the seriousness of the situation. "God knows he's always been short a few cards in the old Uno-deck-"

"Shawn!" Jules snapped angrily. The moment of connection broken, she sighed again. "Go to sleep."

"Real smooth," Gus commented. "You know we're going to die here, right?" Shawn scrunched his face up, and joined Gus in waiting. Shawn would think of a plan. He had to.

* * *

Spots were dancing at the sides of his vision, his world narrowed down to the hands wrapped around his throat and the behemoth of a man connected to them, the man sitting on his hips, pinning him down. The behemoth was good, ex-Army if Carlton was any judge, with a killer's eyes and a slasher smile. He was enjoying this close, personal kill.

Attempted kill.

Carlton changed tactics, undulating his body and twisting at the same time, something between bridging and hip-bumping. He'd counseled women to do this a hundred times in rape-prevention seminars, but he never thought he'd be doing it himself. The behemoth wasn't thrown, but the grip on Lassiter's throat loosened enough for Carlton to twist and sink his teeth into the man's forearm so hard he tasted blood.

The behemoth swore, jerking reflexively. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Lassiter to get a leg in and throw the man off him.

Lassiter gasped air gratefully.

"You fight like a girl," the behemoth snarled.

Carlton threw dirt in the man's eyes and then closed the distance for an old-fashioned punch. He used the combined confusion and pain, darting behind his opponent to grab the behemoth's head and snap it up and to the side. With a disgusting, wet crunch, the behemoth stilled.

"That's how I teach them to fight," Carlton informed the corpse. He dropped to his knees, rubbing his neck, breathing through his aching throat.

He pulled open the man's pack. There was the usual survival gear, and something else—

"Grenades, really?" Carlton wheezed, disbelieving. He couldn't imagine why the behemoth had thought he'd need them to hunt one lone detective, but Carlton sure as Hell could think of a few uses against a group of highly-organized mercenaries. _Thank you, Lady Justice._ The behemoth also had a picture in his pants pocket, of him and a man standing together holding a severed head. They were of a similar age, and the family resemblance was too strong for distant relation. Brothers, most likely, with a shared passion for hunting. The men's body language suggested a close relationship, not a confrontational one. They'd probably split up to cover more ground, with plans to rendezvous later. Carlton drummed his fingers on the green pack, a plan forming in his mind.

All he needed now was eyes on the main encampment, and for that he needed higher ground.

* * *

** Notes:** The scariest part of the story is past. I apologize to those for whom my warnings/author's notes were insufficient warning. It was necessary to sufficently "break" Carlton, Shawn, and Juliet to put them back together again. For those not getting all the E-eggs: Shawn is very good, but Ben is _Benjamin Linus_. ^^


	7. This Place is Death

Juliet knew from experience that most crews couldn't stay together for more than a few jobs before the whole thing crumbled slowly and then fell apart under the weight of criminal selfishness and dislike of authority. Crime bosses counteracted that truth using one of three methods: by fostering a sense of camaraderie, community, and belonging alongside the fear they felt for their leader – the chosen method of gangs or mafias; by rotating the crew out one "accident" at a time, so no one member ever had time to breed the familiar veteran contempt for the leadership, much less spread that contempt to the group; or by instilling such overwhelming loyalty in his lieutenant and such unrelenting fear in the rest of the group that no one ever dared oppose him.

Ben obviously didn't use the first method, and the second was nothing short of suicidal in a criminal venture like this one. The third meant that he only controlled as long as his appearance of omniscient infallibility remained.

That was why Ben wasn't pacing as they waited, the only clue to his tension being a twitchiness to his fingers, a sharpness to his movements that Juliet only saw because she was watching for it so carefully.

Ben couldn't afford even the appearance of weakness, of defeat-ability. His men would abandon him if they saw even a flash of it. Strength in numbers was Ben's greatest advantage over Carlton, and so that's where Juliet needed to push.

"So let me guess," Juliet said, projecting as much as she could without making it obvious her words were meant more for Ben's men than the man himself, "half up-front and half afterwards? Carlton's costing you a lot of money."

She could see the horses in the distance, bringing back the fifth of Carlton's kills – or at least the fifth body they'd found.

Ben smiled.

"An inherent risk of the 'industry,'" he said. "Carlton is acquitting himself quite well."

"You could just call it off."

Ben tilted his head, a disingenuous gesture betrayed as such only by his eyes.

"Then I'd have to refund everyone, and, well, my men have already been paid," the drawled a-sounds were smug, and son of a bitch, he was _amused_. Or looked it, anyway, if he saw Juliet's attempt to sow dissension by casting doubt on the certainty of payday for what it was. If not, he was just messing with her, in which case he was _definitely_ amused. "Even if Carlton kills them all, I will still have enough remaining to fund the next hunt. A good leader pays himself last, not first." Ben raised an eyebrow, as if they shared some private joke, before turning his attention to the men bringing the corpse.

"He kept the guns this time," the guard reported.

"If he's foolish enough to fire one it will provide the rest of the clients a beacon to his position," Ben replied, then nodded for the guard to continue on his way.

The guard grunted, and then continued on with the corpse.

"So how much does one of these hunts cost?" Shawn asked. Juliet didn't allow her consternation at the interruption to show. Shawn had told her he was flying blind against Ben, but even if his gifts weren't helpful, Shawn was still good with people. In fact, the only person she'd ever seen Shawn really strike out with - other than Ben - was Carlton.

"Outside your, or rather, Burton's pay grade," Ben said, sounding bored. Shawn didn't bristle, exactly, but the barb had clearly struck. Gus tapped Shawn's ankle with his foot in an attempt to dissuade him.

"And what happens if Lassie wins?" Shawn asked. "Set up another round of rich guys and start this party all over again?"

"No," Juliet said, getting back into the game by cutting Ben off, her tone as arch and gloating as Carlton had ever been, "because while Lassiter is desperate enough now to temporarily suspend his morality, if he found out Ben lied and this will just go on forever no matter what he does, he'd refuse to participate, even if it meant getting killed. Not very satisfying. But it doesn't matter because 'no one has ever won before.'

"Am I close?"

"Yes," Ben said, and oh, yes, she'd barbed _him_ this time, shaken his men's view of him as without equal, and he knew it. "But you are forgetting one thing: none of this matters to you because you'll be dead."

"But you said you'd let us go-" Gus interjected.

"I _lied_," Ben said coldly, contemptuous at the obviousness of the answer Gus didn't see, and what followed next was said in that same tone, "it's what we _do_ - isn't it, Shawn?"

Shawn blanched, his eyes flashing with something like panic before the usual confidence reappeared, and Shawn backed down.

All Juliet could do, was stare. Ben had meant the exchange to prove he knew what Juliet did not, that her posturing was just that. But it wasn't possible what he'd said meant what it looked like it meant – that Ben had some proof Carlton was right and Shawn was a fake, and that Shawn was afraid Ben was going to share that proof with Juliet because Juliet had pissed him off – but she couldn't _imagine_ what else it _could_ mean, what _other_ hold Ben would have on Shawn. Other than something like Shawn used to be a woman, but no, that wasn't possible because people she knew had known Shawn as a child and he was definitely a boy back then—

"Shawn?" she couldn't keep her voice from shaking.

"It's nothing," Shawn deflected, raising a hand to his temple and making a "crazy" gesture. "Just head games."

Juliet accepted it, stepping back from the chain link because she'd seen Shawn pluck specifics – victim names, body locations, even addresses from the air and fake psychics could only produce babble – and because there was no way the man she loved had lied to her for seven years. Every day. Without apology or remorse, scamming the police department for every dime instead of just coming clean as some kind of Monk-like genius without the crippling OCD – It just wasn't possible. It _wasn't_ _possible_.

And she wasn't trying to clash brains with Ben again. Shawn was right. It was just a mind game to make her doubt her own perceptions, and it had worked. It was still working, doubt niggling in the back of her mind that had never been there before (if it wasn't possible, then why had Shawn panicked?) even though she knew it wasn't real. Wasn't valid.

_Carlton, I hope you can do this on your own, because I can't help you._

Juliet reached for her necklace.

* * *

Carlton had eyes on the main encampment, which meant he was ready. He shed all his supplies but the absolute essentials, which included the weapons he'd taken from the man he'd killed after the behemoth. He'd already used the grenades to lay the first part of his trap.

_Now for the second._ He was taking a page out of the man in the video's book. He hoped the man appreciated the irony.

Carlton turned over the photo, reading the names on the back. The non-guard walkie had been set to a frequency already. Hopefully this would work.

"Danny, can you hear me? It's Carlton. If you don't know my name, I'm the detective you paid so much money to hunt." Carlton kept his voice smooth and challenging, like he was interrogating a particularly guilty suspect.

He waited.

"Don't respond." The command was delivered by the man in the video's voice. Carlton smiled. They could hear him. Good.

"Having a hard time finding your brother, Danny?"

"And you're going to tell me where he is?" a new voice said, in clear defiance of the man in the video's orders. "How do you even know my name?"

"Picture in his pocket," Carlton responded, "the two of you, holding a severed head: sound familiar? Your names were written on the back. Most people label photos right to left, even when they flip it over.

"Your brother ran into me earlier. I cut him up pretty bad, but it's a slow bleed." It was also a complete lie. "If you get to him, you could stop the bleeding, maybe save his life."

"Liar," Danny replied. "If Miles was alive, he'd call for a medivac on his radio."

"That's true," Carlton agreed. "If he had it." Lassiter rattled off the coordinates of his trap, finishing with, "you want me, come and get me."

"He's leading you into a trap," the man in the video said pedantically.

"Maybe," Lassiter agreed readily. "But, Danny, tell me. Can you really take that chance?"

The radios probably had GPS, so Lassiter chucked his as far away from him as he could. Then he took off, weaving in and out of the bush towards his goal.

* * *

Juliet stood, her fingers curled in the chain link of her prison, watching the command tent. Ben was furious, because it was obvious that after delivering his last taunt Carlton had chucked both radios.

"This is going to end soon," Ben said. "Saunders, get your squad and head up to those coordinates. I'd like to think no one would be that stupid, but I'm so often disappointed. Stay out of the way if you get there before Carlton. What happens, happens."

Saunders, the tall, hulking man who had given Ben the prod he'd used on Juliet before, had no sooner ridden out of sight than all activity in the camp was stopped by a cluster of explosions. A black column of smoke rose into the sky: the start of a forest fire.

"Pack it up," Ben snapped, and the men started moving immediately only to be stopped again – by a gunshot.

Ben's body jerked, and dropped to the ground with a bullet hole in his back.

Juliet hit the deck, smiling in spite of Ben's men scrambling to return fire. Carlton didn't miss. He practiced too damn much. A flash of metal caught her eye, black and arching only to land a scant few inches from her cage.

A Beretta.

Juliet scrambled, pulling on the chain link and easing her hand through as Lassiter continued to fire, aiming primarily for the support crew in the main tent and head-shots at the guards. There was a shattering explosion, Juliet didn't know what from, but smoke filled the air. The guards were firing back, half the support staff still clambering for weapons and the other half trying to extinguish the incipient brush-fire whatever Carlton had used for an explosive had started.

Hissing in pain, Juliet slid the gun underneath the wire. Keeping low, she turned, aiming and firing as fast as she could. Ben's men couldn't see Carlton, he was too well-hidden in the trees even without the smoke and confusion.

"Give it up," Carlton shouted, his voice bouncing off the trees. "You don't have time for this! That fire means the FWP will be flying over any minute. Your only way out before they've got your twenty is to get your clients and go!"

Juliet kept firing, aiming for torsos and kneecaps, punctuating each of Carlton's sentences with another shot. Ben's men had ducked behind the equipment as much as they could.

"He's right," another voice shouted. "Who cares, let's go!"

Juliet didn't set her weapon down, but she did stop pulling the trigger. (She only had two more shots left, anyway.)

Lassiter stopped as well, the sudden silence punctuated by the gasps and groans of the injured and dying.

Ben's men fled, taking only those supplies they could carry into the woods and leaving the wounded behind. No honor amongst criminals, it seemed. The cop in Juliet hated to see them get away with it, but she'd been on the force long enough to know that they barely had enough firepower to finagle a retreat. The only reason they'd won that at all was because Ben was dead. Until a new leader arose from the ashes, this crew would be every man for himself - every man who didn't want to face who the FWP chopper would call when it flew over this mess.

When the last man had disappeared into the woods, Carlton emerged, carrying a long rifle. He was in hunter's camo, except for his battered suit pants, his face and hands smeared with mud to keep his white skin from giving away his position. He took a keychain from one of the guards and approached her cage.

"Black key, square handle," Juliet said, hearing her own voice quavering. Carlton reeked of body odor, blood, bad breath, and dirt. He was even thinner, the bones in his hands and face sticking out like the spines of a mantis, his cheeks gaunt and eyes sporting dark circles beneath the mud. He had a week's growth of beard tangled with leaves and mud and blood, and more blood and mud caked and spattered on his clothes.

He looked like Hell.

He was the most wonderful thing Juliet had ever seen.

As soon as the cage door opened, she threw her arms over his shoulders and pressed her face into his jacket.

"Thank God," she murmured. Carlton's arms wrapped around her slowly, as they had on the clock tower, but that time it had been Juliet facing death. "Carlton, I'm so sorry-"

"Hey!" Shawn shouted imperiously, ruining the mood and making Carlton stiffen and pull back. "Hey, guys, over here! Still locked in a cage!"

"I'm coming, Spencer," Lassiter barked, then turned to walk on shaky legs to Shawn's cage.

After that it was all work: using Ben's radio to call for help, restraining the wounded, moving the dead out of the way. The FWP and local police flew in on a search-and-rescue chopper filled with medics; medics who wanted to poke and prod and ask questions, and then the police wanted to ask more questions before the FBI showed up to take the glory, probing for descriptions and numbers so they could at least make as many arrests as possible—

Shawn was loud, drawing the attention to himself, and for once Juliet was grateful because it meant she could slip away and pull Carlton behind the parked chopper without anyone noticing.

"I'm fine," Carlton insisted, even though his hands were shaking and he was leaning on the chopper more than standing. His eyes were wild. "I'm fine, O'Hara-"

"You killed seven people, Carlton, who were hunting you like an animal for _fun_," Juliet said firmly as Lassiter tried to push her away – either half-heartedly or honestly too physically weak to do so, Juliet couldn't be sure and that was terrifying. She pressed her fingers into Lassiter's arms, even bonier than usual under that revolting coat. "It's okay not to be fine."

It was what he'd said to her on the clock tower, after Yin had left her suspended with her life ticking away. The effect on Carlton was immediate: he gasped, shuddered, his head turning this way and that in momentary panic before the first choked sound escaped his control. Once the dam broke, the flood followed, and Carlton bent as if in prayer, his knees going out from under him. Juliet knelt with him as Lassiter pressed his face into her shoulder.

_For that I need his first choice: you._

Juliet swallowed and refused to cry with him, because if she did, Carlton would make himself stop to comfort her. She just patted his shoulder and stroked his filthy, matting hair, and promised him over and over, with all her heart, that he'd done the right thing.


	8. Born to Run

The authorities took them to the nearest town hosting a doctor, who released them all after an exam with an injunction to eat and a mild sedative to help them sleep. The town boasted one hotel, a shabby hole-in-the-wall that usually housed exhausted motorists and out-of-state game hunters. The proprietor agreed to host them after a brief conversation with the state trooper assigned to their care, and apparently they were a sorry sight, un-showered in their borrowed tennis shoes and state trooper sweats (their clothes had all been confiscated to check for evidence), because he announced he wasn't charging and they could stay as long as they needed.

The shower was lukewarm that soon turned to cold, but it was a shower. She went to check on Shawn afterward: she'd been pretty much ignoring him after their rescue in favor of Carlton, and he was her boyfriend. Her knock interrupted a tirade on the injustice of being unable to order pizza at six PM because everything in the town but the grocery store and gas station closed at five. Ben's men had left Juliet's purse behind when they'd grabbed her and Shawn's wallet was an exercise in pointlessness, so Gus offered to pick up whatever microwaveables he could at the grocery store.

"Would you mind picking up something for Lassiter?" Jules asked, sitting on the edge of Shawn's bed. "They still haven't found his wallet, assuming Ben didn't just throw away everything but the license."

"Sure," Gus said with a shrug, as if she shouldn't have even had to ask. Juliet couldn't explain the sudden rush of warm gratitude in her chest. "What does he like?"

"Sunflower seeds," Shawn said, leaning back against the headboard and picking up the remote.

"Anything," Juliet said, "but get something light, with fiber." Carlton had been subsisting on half-rations of meal bars and military rations for a week, and he was dehydrated. His stomach might be a little finicky for the next few days, and even on a normal week Carlton didn't eat the kind of fare Shawn and Gus preferred.

After Gus left, Juliet didn't know what to say. She just pulled at a loose thread of quilting on the comforter. The mattress was lumpy under her ass, which meant the bed in her room was probably just as ancient, but it was still a mattress in a room with a heater. Not a sleeping bag on a rubber mat in a cage.

"So, ah-" Shawn began, but when Juliet looked up at him, he stilled. "Want to see if there's anything on?" he said, as if that was what he'd wanted to ask all along.

_I lied. It's what we do, isn't it Shawn?_

"Sure," Juliet said, because while the idea of overacted comedy made her feel almost nauseated, the idea of sitting in sepulchral silence was worse.

Shawn flipped through the channels - most of them news programs - and when he saw a movie he paused, but only long enough to realize it was The Hunger Games. He turned off the television immediately, even before Juliet could gather enough air into her suddenly frozen lungs to insist.

"Maybe tv's a bad idea," Shawn said. Juliet nodded mutely. What the Hell was taking Gus so long?

And why was everything so awkward?

Juliet leaned forward, her hands on her knees, and pressed her face in her hands. She was so tired. If Gus would just hurry, she could eat and climb into bed. Lock the hotel door, unscrew the handle from the plunger and use it as a dowel to make sure her window couldn't be slid open. Maybe feel safe, or as safe as she could until they put Ben's body in the ground. She couldn't remember if there'd been blood around the gunshot, no matter how many times she played it over in her mind.

"I, uh," Shawn said, his voice breathy and light. "I wanted—wanted to be the one who- who saved- you."

Juliet dropped her hands from her face and stared down at them. The borrowed sweatshirt was huge, making her hands look like children's hands in daddy's clothes. Her manicure was shot to Hell.

"I know, Shawn," she said wearily. She should say something comforting, something supportive, but she didn't know what could possibly be either in this situation. It was selfish, they'd both been through the exact same ordeal, but she wanted to hear something comforting from Shawn.

The silence wore on until Gus returned. He'd brought Lassiter a Lunchables and a Caesar salad, the same for Juliet. He'd got various microwave pizzas and chimichangas for him and Shawn.

"Thank you," she told him, picking up her food and Carlton's. "I'll take this to him."

"Something wrong?" she heard Gus ask after she'd closed the door.

The state troopers drove them out to Boise the following day. The FBI met them there, in the form of two agents fresh from the Academy who had flown in from Seattle. Carlton was clean-shaven and cooperative, pride of the SBPD, answering questions and cognitive interviews as detached as if it had happened to someone else.

Juliet was sure she sounded the same way. She didn't volunteer the truth about why she'd been chosen, or that she'd asked Ben about it, much less what he'd said in reply. The agents didn't ask. The bond between partners was enough explanation for them, she supposed.

The agents told them that they'd heard of Ben's organization before, even collected the occasional piece of circumstantial evidence, but never anything concrete enough to launch a full investigation. Juliet wasn't surprised, even though the reminder of Ben's meticulousness made her shiver.

"Did they-" she started to say as the agents walked out of the police department conference room they'd commandeered. The agents turned to look at her. "Is he really dead?"

"We're still identifying the bodies," the taller agent said, his voice soft with pity. Juliet looked down at the table, unwilling to watch it in his face. "We'll let you know as soon as we do. But even if he isn't, as you said, he won't come after you again. Your partner… no longer suits his needs. Neither do you."

The agents closed the door. Juliet folded her hands on the table, rested her forehead on them, and then softly cried alone.

* * *

From Boise, they flew to Santa Barbara. They were met at the airport: Vick, Buzz, Juliet's family, Shawn's family, Gus's family, Carlton's family, and other well-wishers. Even a few reporters. It was loud, chaotic, swirling. Full of joy from those who loved, full of awe from those who didn't, because Carlton had been dropped in the middle of the woods with nothing but his suit and had still taken out six armed opponents and the mercenary gang behind them.

Once, not long ago, Carlton would have basked in the attention, the admiration. He would have strutted down the terminal's halls, accepting the accolades of colleagues and the affection of his family with equal satisfaction.

Now he just wanted to run away. The cacophony of the crowd, so different from the subtle noises of the woods that had been both shelter and arena for the past week, jangled on his nerves and pounded relentlessly against his skull, winding sinuously around his ribs and choking off his air.

They – Buzz, Vick, his mother, Lulu, even Althea – needed to know he was okay (even though he wasn't) so Carlton steeled himself to the overstimulation and waded his way through the crowd. He didn't smile - he didn't trust it not to look false, especially to those who knew him best - but he tried to look warm. Juliet's family was there, her transgression in prosecuting Ewan apparently forgiven in the face of a week of not knowing if she was alive or dead. He gave half-answers to questions and pleaded a not-faked exhaustion, his fingers interlaced with Marlowe's hand so tightly they hurt.

Vick told him he and Juliet were on trauma leave, pending an evaluation by a state psychologist and a routine review of their actions by Internal Affairs. Killing a suspect in self-defense was still killing a suspect, and between the long hunt in the woods and the final shoot-out at the camp, neither he nor Juliet could remember exactly how many suspects they'd killed.

Then finally it had been over, he and Marlowe in his Ford Fusion and Marlowe driving him home.

He'd refused to take the sedatives. Sleeping pills were a road he didn't want even to get started on, even if for the first two nights the nightmares had him waking bathed in sweat and unable to return to sleep, and if the days had him feeling like a caged animal instead of a wild one.

He was an animal. Carlton had no doubt about that. No Man would have done what he had done.

Marlowe wanted to talk about it, but Carlton couldn't tell her, and her fussing only made it worse no matter how well-intentioned. He started running like he was training for a marathon just to have an excuse to leave the house, even though running was too much like running scared.

Carlton was certainly scared, especially the third day when they called to say they'd identified all the bodies, and the man in the video wasn't among them. Either his fleeing men had taken his body during the fuss, or they'd found him dragging himself through the woods and rescued him, or he'd been wearing Kevlar under that button-down shirt.

No matter how often he played it over in his mind, he couldn't remember if he'd seen blood around the gunshot.

The third night he didn't wake up bathed in sweat and shaking from a terror somewhere between dream and memory. He woke up to the crack of a fist across his cheek, tumbling out of bed and landing hard on the floor; to Marlowe coughing and gasping for air while she rubbed her throat.

He'd been choking her in his sleep. Carlton didn't blame her for hitting him, she'd done the right thing. That didn't stop him from throwing an overnight bag together heedless of her protests that she understood, that she wanted to help, that he hadn't meant it.

Carlton didn't deserve her sympathy. He told her as much, his voice strident and loud enough to wake the neighbors, and he told her about the man whose face he'd caved in. The men he'd stabbed, shot, strangled, and snapped their necks with his bare hands he kept to himself.

Then he ran. The bank was still processing his request for new debit and credit cards, so Carlton was running on cash and checks. He had enough on him to pay for a room, but not a deposit, so he ended up in a seedy dive on the outskirts of town that was more of an ongoing pit stop for easy trade and drug deals – the kind of place that Carlton once would have sworn he'd rather sleep in the bushes than step foot in.

Now, though, Carlton had slept in the bushes and he didn't care what anyone else in the place was doing as long as they left him alone. He was too tired to care, laying on his back on the bed and making shapes out of the stucco's texturing.

He'd choked Marlowe in his sleep, and if she hadn't punched him he might have killed her without even waking up. Hell, she was just lucky he hadn't broken her hyoid bone in the first squeeze.

He was out of the woods – Carlton's lips twisted bitterly – but the woods weren't out of him, and the man in the video was still out there, maybe alive and maybe dead, and Carlton had no way of knowing. Juliet was insistent that he wouldn't be back, that the fact Carlton would refuse to participate a second time made him an unappealing target.

Lassiter knew better, and the man in the video probably did, too. If a gun was pointed at Juliet's head, he'd do anything he was asked, including "killing back" a few bored rich guys. Sitting there and letting her get shot out of principle? Not going to happen.

It hadn't happened. He'd beaten a corpse until it was unrecognizable because "Ben" (if that was even his real name) had threatened to have Juliet raped; emotionally tortured a suspect for no other reason than to make the group so sloppy they'd blow themselves up just to keep them off his trail; and shot Ben in the back like a coward because it was the most expedient way to ensure Juliet would be saved. He didn't know where this man of honor Juliet saw was, and he sure as Hell didn't know where the badass Buzz and the press were admiring was, either.

He'd been terrified the entire time, making things up as he went along with no other goal that surviving the next few minutes and saving Juliet.

Lassiter had never thought beyond that, never thought about what being home would entail.

He hadn't even thought he'd make it home, and he hadn't cared as long as Juliet did.

The men who'd kidnapped him had left his cell phone at the scene; Vick had already returned it to him. It buzzed, alerting him to an incoming text message. He looked at the phone. The message was from Juliet.

_Open the door, Carlton._

He hadn't left a digital trail, and he hadn't told anyone where he was, but apparently Buzz's devotion to the absurd included having Carlton's GPS traced upon O'Hara's request without even the whisper of a warrant.

_Please, Carlton._

As if he could refuse that.

Carlton opened the door. Juliet was in a University of Miami tee-shirt and jeans, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She looked exhausted.

Lassiter had no idea what to say, so he just let her in and asked what she needed. He cringed to himself at how blunt his voice sounded.

"I stopped by your place," Juliet said, somewhere between hesitation and something else. "The doctor only gave me three pills, and those who haven't already used up their emergency leave have three more days left." That she didn't want to wake her family up the way he'd woken Marlowe went unsaid.

"I left the sedatives at my place," Lassiter stated.

"Marlowe gave them to me," Juliet said, looking down at her hands. "I saw the bruises, she told me what happened-"

Lassiter was suddenly furious, scalding anger shooting up from his toes all the way to his brain.

"I'm fine," he snapped. It was bad enough Juliet had seen him be a victim, bad enough he hadn't been able to hold it together and be strong for her so she'd had to comfort _him_ behind a helicopter when _she'd_ been the one held captive by the sickest, twisted, most terrifying_ things_ Carlton had ever faced. That was bad enough, but still excusable by the situation, but this? This was rank-and-file weakness, proof that he was violent to the core and what had happened in the woods wasn't desperation but who he was.

He didn't want Juliet to know he was a monster, even though she'd doubtless seen it for herself. She'd certainly seen enough before to choose Shawn's boisterous happy-go-lucky charm over his (dreary, dull, duty-bound) darkness. She didn't want a weapon for a mate, even if he was the sort of man selfish enough to let himself entertain the idea near Shawn's loud and jealous mouth.

"Carlton, you are not fine-"

"I am fine," he insisted, bristling. "If you've got the urge to go mother-hen something helpless, why don't you go take care of your boyfriend? He's your priority, not me." It was hurtful and vicious and unfair, especially given everything that happened since she'd thrown him under a bus to cover for Spencer's mouth, but he didn't care. He just wanted her _away_.

"You know what?" Juliet said, with that _look_ she sometimes got when he was being particularly irrational from her viewpoint. "Fine." She pulled out her phone, opened it, and dialed.

"Shawn?" she said, her voice clipped and cold and angry and sharp all at once, "we're taking a break." He couldn't understand Spencer's words, the phone wasn't that loud, but Lassiter could recognize those indignant squawks anywhere. "Exactly what it sounds like. As of right now, there is no you-and-me, there's just you, and there's just me." Another incredulous protest, which Juliet replied to with, "I don't have to explain why, Shawn. Good bye." Then O'Hara hung up the phone.

Carlton's anger abandoned him, leaving him alone in a meadow of shocked silence.

"Now Shawn's not my boyfriend. You're my priority. You going to tell me what's going on?" Her cell rang. She silenced it without even glancing at it.

"Nightmares," Carlton heard himself say dumbly, the truth surprised out of him by the bombshell of watching Juliet break up with Shawn in a very final and extremely tactless way just to prove to him she was sincere. The rest of the story, about the ex-Army behemoth he'd used rape-defense techniques and pure viciousness to kill, spilled out in the minutes it took his brain to process that what he'd seen had really happened.

"It's normal, you know," Juliet said after he finished. "Ewan's military buddies would choke their wives or break wrists when someone tried to wake them up. It's why the military started giving grunts some counseling as part of their reintegration package, and why the military stopped treating post-traumatic stress like a joke. Ask your therapist if you don't believe me."

Lassiter knew he wouldn't. What O'Hara was saying sounded familiar, and the O'Haras were a military family.

"What else?" It was a demand from Juliet, not a request.

"Just feeling… caged," Lassiter admitted, sitting on the bed and running a hand through his hair. It was getting too long, starting to curl instead of wave. He'd need to cut it soon.

"Me, too," O'Hara said softly after a moment's pause, moving to sit next to him on the bed. "I know I should enjoy having my family here, talking to me again, and I do, but it also feels…" Juliet trailed off.

"Suffocating," Lassiter supplied. He could see O'Hara nod in the reflection in the scratched, well-worn window pane.

The silence stretched between them.

"Why don't we just _go_?" Juliet finally blurted. Carlton turned his head to look at her. "We're on trauma leave. I've always wanted to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, you've always wanted to see Alcatraz, and everyone loves sourdough. Let's just get in the car and _drive_."

He didn't know why she'd picked Frisco and he didn't care. It was the best plan he'd heard in weeks.

* * *

Her family was a military family, and police besides, and so when she'd shown up with the announcement that she was taking her partner to Frisco for a couple of days because he was in a bad place and his family was a nightmare who couldn't help, they accepted it with restrained regret and something akin to grace - grace that was abetted by the guilt the week she'd been kidnapped had instilled in them. Her partner had looked after her while they'd been (what it seemed like now) wasting time they couldn't get back in stone-faced anger; and if Juliet had died or gotten hurt, it would have been Lassiter the authorities would have looked to as next-of-kin. Not them.

So, yes, they accepted the fact Carlton needed her attention now with the same sense of "one must lie in the bed one has made" that they'd accepted the intrusions of Shawn (who had been the one to bring Juliet joy while they'd been freezing her out).

That didn't mean they hesitated to let Shawn into the house to try to talk her out of it.

He barged into her room while she was throwing a suitcase together.

"What the Hell, Jules?" he demanded; unknowingly mirroring the fight with Carlton that had, in her opinion, started this mess.

"I'm sorry, Shawn, I really am. If I'd had time to think out what I was going to say I wouldn't have said it like that," she said, because she was sorry for how blunt and cold she'd been. "Carlton was being unreasonable and temporarily breaking up with you was the only way to get him to listen." Or, more to the point, talk. She didn't, however, pause in her packing. She'd been putting Shawn first throughout this entire crisis, looking after him at the expense of her partner, and now that had resulted in Lassiter doubly-suspended in some truly disgusting hotel after strangling his girlfriend in his sleep. (Which was _statistically_ common in vets who'd seen combat as vicious and personal as what Carlton had been through, she hadn't lied exactly, but she hadn't mentioned that it was also a very bad sign.)

"That doesn't even make any sense!" Shawn shouted.

"He wouldn't listen to me because he said you were my priority," Juliet said reasonably. And Shawn had been, because she'd thought Lassiter could handle it, and he had. But now he wasn't handling it, and Juliet was done with being a terrible partner.

She had been a terrible partner. For her to see it, it had taken being kidnapped and held at gunpoint by a sociopath followed by three days of being immersed in her family's regrets and their belated and over-enthusiastic - but still-warm and welcome – support, but she saw it now. Wherever Ewan was, her family had thought he'd needed to be "avenged" because Juliet had put the law ahead of her own flesh and blood. They'd abandoned her to give Ewan that vengeance, because filling that need had coincided with their own anger, their own want to punish someone for the fact Ewan would never be allowed to see them again.

Carlton had stood by her then, assuring her she'd done the right thing and that he would have made the exact same call. He'd been her best friend, he'd had her back in everything, and she'd let that relationship grow distant over the past year, culminating in this. She'd abandoned him to see to Shawn's needs for validation and protection, because filling those needs had coincided with her own needs for love and romance.

She did love Shawn, with all her heart, but right now she needed to make up for what she'd done the way her family was trying to make it up to her. Afterwards, after this, she'd find a way to be more balanced, she promised herself. But for now, Lassiter needed to be her priority.

"I _am_ your priority," Shawn said, gesticulating wildly. "Trying to fix Lassie, if that's even possible, is _Marlowe's_ job!"

The burst of anger was sharp and sudden: Lassiter had saved Shawn's life as much as Juliet's own, at great cost to himself, and Gus's life as well.

"Marlowe is out of her league," Juliet said furiously. "Especially since 'it's only true' she's only with him for his money."

"I was taking _your side_ in a fight, in case you forgot!"

That didn't matter now. If anything, the reminder of how bad a partner she'd been that day only strengthened Juliet's resolve. She was going to fix this.

"Carlton is my partner," Juliet said flatly as she zipped up her bag and grabbed her purse. "I'm doing this, end of discussion. We'll talk when I get back." She brushed by Shawn.

"Back from where?" Shawn said, following her as she said hugged her parents and her other brother goodbye.

"Frisco," Juliet said, "and I don't want to see you there because you'll only make it worse. Good bye, Shawn. We will talk when I get back, I promise, and everything will make sense then."

The psychic followed her out, telling her she was being everything from impulsive to irrational, driven by guilt, and she needed to stay and think this over.

Juliet was sure it was all true.

She got in Lassiter's Fusion anyway, and told him to drive.

"Watch your toes," Lassiter said, with enough of his old snark that Juliet felt fifty pounds lighter than when she'd first suggested this.

"What the Hell?" Shawn repeated, shouting at the car as it pulled away.

* * *

Gus flatly refused to be convinced to take Shawn to San Francisco to chase after Juliet.

"You need to give Juliet space, Shawn," Gus advised steadily, looking back at his emails. There was no trauma leave for pharmaceutical reps, and he had to use the pity being through such an ordeal would garner him to his advantage before it expired. "You were her controlling hostage, remember?" Gus's fingers paused involuntarily as Gus remembered their terrifying captor and the brutal beating Shawn had received. Shawn was still moving a little slower than normal, even if his usual loudness hadn't been dimmed. Gus also remembered the man whose face Lassiter had caved in because he'd been pissed off at Ben for just the threat of having Juliet raped.

"Yeah, but Jules was Lassiter's 'controlling hostage.' If that's all this is, shouldn't he not want to see her?"

"That's different," Gus said, still not typing. It was very different, because if Gus had been in Juliet's place and Shawn in Lassiter's, Shawn simply wouldn't have been capable of what Lassiter had done.

That was the other reason he was refusing to go to San Francisco.

"Look, Shawn," Gus said, quietly. "You saw what Lassiter did out there. He's going to snap, and when that happens, I don't want to be in the same city as him. It's final, I'm not going."


	9. The Long Con

They made one more stop before leaving Santa Barbara: Carlton's bank. It took a little longer to get cash out of his account than normal, but that he'd already filed the police report about his lost wallet (and still-evidence driver's license) and that the manager-on-duty had been the one to process his request for new bank cards had helped speed things along. Juliet used the ATM.

They left their phones behind and used cash the entire drive, including the two rooms at a Super 8 when they'd arrived. They did have to present Juliet's credit card for the deposit, but as long as they didn't use room service or damage anything, there wouldn't be a charge to trace.

They were five hours away from anywhere anyone would expect them to be, untraceable in a city of over 800,000 that received 15 million visitors a year. No one cared who they were or where they'd been. Or what they'd done. The story had been big news in Santa Barbara because the victims were locals, and in Idaho because nothing ever happened in Idaho, but in San Francisco the press had bigger headlines to run.

They were safe, and for the first time since he'd been woken up by a rock digging in his back, Carlton could breathe. Despite insisting on staying awake with him the entire drive, O'Hara looked better as well. They'd checked in and crashed, waking up groggy around seven PM and grabbing food at the nearest restaurant they'd been able to see from the hotel. They spent dinner pouring over the hotel's tourist guide, planning tomorrow and – at O'Hara's insistence - deliberately not planning the day after.

Crowds were unappealing, so they found a park and went for a brief night-run to wear themselves out. O'Hara insisted on picking up some chamomile tea at a grocery store and drinking it before bed.

Lassiter still dreamed of being hunted and being too late, but he also stayed asleep.

* * *

"Alcatraz was more interesting than I thought it would be," Juliet admitted as they sat down. The Delancey Street Restaurant had been listed in the hotel's guide, and Carlton had chosen it for lunch after their museum tour. The restaurant was a vocational teaching establishment: a place for homeless people and ex-addicts to learn to cook, serve, or manage a starred restaurant so they could rebuild their lives.

"I'm sure the two men who 'escaped' drowned," Carlton said. His satisfaction wasn't as enthusiastic as it normally would have been, and hers was more so. They considered their menus quietly, and made their selections when the waiter arrived.

"I like this place," Carlton declared as he walked away. "No government handouts, no excuses: just good hard work and teaching people a trade. Pulling themselves out of the gutter by their own bootstraps."

Juliet shook her head and hid her smile. Carlton could sound so pompous.

They watched the water across the Embarcerado through the glass, the bustle of people and cars around and over the bridge.

"I- I'm sorry, O'Hara," Carlton said suddenly. "For the overkill. With the fourth. I couldn't— I needed the man in— Ben— to be afraid of me. It was the only way I could think of."

Juliet swallowed.

"It worked," she said softly. She looked at Lassiter, but he was still looking out at the water. Juliet followed his gaze. "He was afraid. You did what you had to do."

She would have done the same. She had her own violent streak, her own history of altercations that stopped just shy of crossing the line. It just wasn't as close to the surface. Or perhaps it was because she was better at undercover work than Carlton: better at getting people to think she was something she wasn't; better at lying on the fly, so smooth and fluid that sometimes she even believed them herself, lost in the part.

"I'm glad they're dead," she announced, almost startling herself. "I don't normally wish people ill, but—how do you even get across that line where hunting innocent people is fun?"

"You're born across that line," Lassiter said firmly.

"Maybe," Juliet admitted, looking away from the water to rearrange the silverware on her napkin. "I've never believed in bad seeds before. I choose to believe the best in people, give them another chance."

"I've noticed," Carlton snorted.

Juliet bristled, the connection between them broken by a long-standing irritation.

"I thought we agreed you wouldn't comment on Shawn and me."

"I guess that answers the question of whether your breakup was real or temporary, but I was talking about your father," Lassiter said; the curl of bitterness in his voice and mouth familiar. She'd seen enough of it since Carlton had found out about her and Shawn dating. She'd thought his ire stemmed from principle - from being lied to by his partner - and from his complicated relationship with Shawn: which could, depending on the day, involve everything from grudging respect or equally-grudging fondness to jealousy or loathing.

The idea that part of Carlton's jealousy stemmed from wanting what he could not have, and then seeing the reason he couldn't have it get that very thing he so very much desired – it had never even occurred to her. But Ben had seen it, and exploited it. Now Juliet couldn't help but wonder if Shawn had seen – or Seen – it as well, and if that wasn't part of his constant disparagement of Lassiter. Disparagement that had gotten worse, not better, over the past year.

Assuming Ben was right. Juliet still wasn't completely certain of that, if only because she didn't want to be. She couldn't have missed something like that, could she? On the other hand, no one had known that Carlton's separation had been a matter of years instead of a matter of months until he'd told them.

And Ben's words made sense: the little things, like noting her shampoo smelled like peaches and not letting male suspects or witnesses mouth off about her looks; and the big things like abandoning a civilian to her own devices in order to rescue Juliet, and the way he was always had her back unconditionally every time she was lead on a case or went undercover – like the Roller Derby case, when she'd called on Lassiter to remove Shawn from the scene – and the way he didn't point out her mistakes publicly the way he did everyone else's. The way he'd let her down very gently and very professionally when he'd misinterpreted her commentary on his sartorial choices as a come-on.

Professionally. Carlton was a professional, if a very socially-awkward one, and that only leant more weight to Ben's reasoning.

Juliet wanted to ask flat-out – "Do you love me?" – but even the thought was pointless. Shawn _was_ loud and he _was_ jealous and insecure at times and he _had_ gotten Juliet's predecessor sent away. If Carlton had decided his silence needed to happen, there was nothing on this earth that could make him break. Even more so now that he was with Marlowe. Second choice or no, a means to convince himself he'd moved on or no, Carlton would never double-time Marlowe unless Marlowe left him.

"They are both con men, though, which explains a lot," Carlton continued, and Juliet had to shake herself and trace her thoughts back to figure out what Lassiter was talking about.

Carlton was talking about Frank O'Hara and Shawn, but "it's what we do, isn't it, Shawn?" Ben had said. Like knew like, and Ben had been nothing if not a masterful manipulator.

The waiter set down her food, but Juliet wasn't interested, feeling a chill in the pit of her stomach. Ben's words had hung between her and Shawn for the past three days, filling any moment of quiet with doubt and awkwardness. She told herself that it had just been a mind-game on Ben's part, a way to make her doubt her own abilities and to shake her faith in Shawn's.

But the doubt lingered. Shawn had essentially been a non-issue to Ben, already beaten (literally) and no threat. Juliet hadn't been looking to him for rescue and Shawn hadn't been leading a rescue – that had been Juliet. If anything, he should have been trying to shake Shawn's faith in _her._

And what was more, Shawn had _backed down_ when Ben had said it.

Shawn never backed down or backed off, not from anything, ever. But Ben had implied they were one in the same, liars, and Shawn had yielded like a two-bit hood-rat spotting the city don's enforcer heading into a bar.

No. Shawn wasn't a criminal. He _wasn't_ like Ben in any way. She and Shawn had known each other almost a decade, just a few years shy, and there was no way he had lied to her every day.

But Shawn had still backed down, and Ben had still had nothing to fear from Shawn.

"Why do you say that?" she asked Carlton. "You've seen Shawn pull specifics from thin air, you gave him a lie-detector test, you know how many cases he's helped us solve – why are you still so skeptical? Because 'Shawn isn't psychic because psychics don't exist' is circular logic."

She'd never asked before. Now she needed to know, because Ben was cunning and cruel, but Carlton would never try to gaslight her.

At first Lassiter didn't say anything, clearly weighing his response and, possibly, whether he even wanted to answer.

"A polygraph is based on fluctuations in the body's homeostasis," Carlton said, "it's not foolproof, you know that." She was a cop, she did. A polygraph's use in court was limited because it could be wrong and be fooled. "And Spencer does give us the right conclusions: after being wrong three or four times, which is about the same number of red herrings and mistaken leads a regular detective goes through."

Juliet breathed out in relief, picking up her utensils to cut her food. Carlton's evidence was circumstantial at best, still more prejudice than proof.

"And he was wrong about Lucinda."

Juliet looked up in shock.

"I liked her, don't get me wrong, and we did sleep together – once, after Donnelly's retirement party. Her fiancé had just left her for 'Stewart.' Victoria had been gone for two years and had been… _seeing_ this," Carlton waved his hand wordlessly in lieu of a description, "_man_ for months but still wouldn't decide on divorce or reconciliation. Lucinda was drunk and so was I, and you know what I'm like drunk." She did. Carlton was the most amorous drunk she'd ever met: he'd even make out with men, if they were willing. Though, given their job, that was a secret Juliet would take with her to her grave.

"Afterwards she wanted to be 'a little bit more than friends' for a while, go 'slow,' and keep it a secret - which I respected even though it didn't make any sense. I don't have the power to promote or demote, or even write someone up. The most I can do is recommending further or remedial training." A head detective was like a head cashier: a training officer with a little extra paperwork, some of the duties of a manager but none of the privileges. "There was no reason for anyone to think sleeping with me would have furthered her career, beyond the usual bias of knowing-someone-who-knows-someone.

"When everything hit the fan with Shawn, Lucinda transferred to avoid the talk." Carlton shrugged. "She did what was best for her, no one can fault her for that, and Spencer has never wavered in his position. So, either he isn't as perceptive as he claims, or he's an asshat who didn't care about the consequences of his exaggerations. Or both."

Juliet stared.

_"If Marlowe hadn't come along, Carlton would have died of loneliness rather than take that kind of risk with __**your**__ career."_

Juliet opened her mouth, not sure of what to say or what she could say, only to have her jaw drop open further when she saw who was paying at the cashier's station.

"Oh, my God."

Lassiter turned immediately to follow her gaze, and immediately repeated her statement.

It was Pierre Despereaux, very much alive and taking a very real credit card from the equally non-hallucinated host and walking out the door.

"Son of a bitch," Carlton said, jumping up from his chair and rushing across the room. Juliet followed hot on his heels. There was no sign of him outside.

"Hey," the host said, opening the restaurant door, "you have to pay for that."

Vick still had Carlton's badge, but Juliet's hadn't been taken away, not for trauma leave. They went back inside and Juliet flashed her credentials. They were out-of-jurisdiction, but most civilians wouldn't check a badge that closely.

"That last patron, what was his name?"

"Peter Roo-something," the host answered.

"Reubens?" Lassiter said sharply.

"Yeah, that was it," the host said.

"Unbelievable," Juliet said, turning from the host to Lassiter. She turned back to the host and asked for a container for their food, then back to Carlton. "Being so sure of your faked death that you keep using the same aliases."

"Humility isn't one of Despereaux's strong suits," Carlton said. "He must've had CODIS hacked, substituted someone else's DNA record for his own."

They went straight from the restaurant to the nearest precinct of the San Francisco Police Department. They didn't receive a hearing ear, no matter how reasonably they presented their case or insisted they'd seen him with their own eyes.

"Look," the detective they'd spoken with finally said. "I checked with your Chief. You've both been through a lot. You're probably just confused. Pierre Despereaux is dead, and imagining that he could or would have CODIS hacked is overestimating his skills and preparedness. He was an art thief and a fraudster, not ex-CIA."

"But he had a lot of money. He could have hired someone who was," Juliet said to Carlton, standing on the steps of the precinct after they'd been escorted outside.

"Then we'll just have to take Despereaux down ourselves," Carlton growled.

* * *

_Juliet's violent streak is canon: In "American Duos" she talked about being kicked out of cheerleading camp for hitting another camp-member hard enough for her to lose consciousness; in "Scary Sherry, Bianca's Toast" the axe had to be removed from Juliet's hands; she disassembles and reassembles her gun to relieve stress; and her glee at breaking that woman's nose in "Talk Derby to Me" was a tad excessive. Drunk!Lassiter making out with men was implied in "A Very Juliet Episode."_


	10. Expose

They moved operations to the nearest public library. Juliet signed up for a library card to get them a computer and internet access, as well as reverse directories and research materials. They commandeered the computer farthest from the door to work.

They were too far out of their jurisdiction for McNab to help. Furthermore, even if they got the debit card number from the restaurant, anything they got from running a bank account without a warrant would be fruit of the poison tree and inadmissible in court. The only reason they could do anything at all was because they were on leave, and somewhat private citizens.

It also meant they had to follow private citizen rules.

They had no idea where Despereaux was, and only one instance of where he'd been. They needed to get out ahead of him, to find out where he was going to be.

"First question, why is he here?" Lassiter said, unwrapping his new notepad and uncapping a pen. "San Francisco is rich in targets big enough to draw out Despereaux's old operation, but it's got to be something other than insurance fraud to justify not heading out to Fiji."

Juliet nodded, typing in "art museums San Francisco." After perusing both the museums and their exhibits, and Googling the museum owners and curators, they were both drowning in possibilities – and that wasn't even counting the private collectors.

"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," Juliet said as they stood up, clearing out of the way for the next patron when their time ran out. They moved over to a reading table, pulling up chairs and looking at their list. None of the curators seemed to be having undue financial trouble, but none of the news articles suggested enough wealth to rule them out, either.

"How so?" Carlton asked, rubbing his chin. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing his still too-bony wrists. He'd obviously punched a new hole in his belt.

"Despereaux is a peacock. He likes attention, panache, someone to admire him. He has to keep a low profile around his partners in fraud and when he's scoping his targets to keep from getting caught, but in his hotels and other habits – he's money and charm and… Catwoman."

"The upscale hotels aren't going to give him up based on a picture," Carlton countered. "They're paid to be discreet. Same with high-end merchants and bankers. What else is there?"

Juliet drummed her pencil against the table quietly.

"He's a lothario," Carlton said, finally, "though that doesn't really help us. It's not as if a pack of 'desperate housewives' is going to admit to a tumble in the hay with an 'exciting blonde' just because a couple of on-leave cops show up with his picture. It'll be worse than going to the hotels."

Juliet smiled. There was one thing capable of getting past hotels' discretion, and that something was also interested in rich women and scandal.

"That's it. The paparazzi. They keep track of everyone who might be anyone looking for a story. If Despereaux has been out-and-about with his rich women friends, they'd've seen him. And for the right price, they'll talk."

Carlton smiled, predatory and joyous.

"O'Hara, you're brilliant."

Juliet preened.

They grabbed an early dinner, and then returned to the library to hit up Google for the contact information of the local paparazzi. Between only being able to use the computer for short bursts and waiting for those higher up on the list to have a turn, the process took until the library closed.

After they returned to the hotel and showered, Juliet lay awake staring at the ceiling, invisible in the dark. She didn't think about what Carlton had said at lunch, or what it might mean, or whether that counted as circumstantial evidence or proof or not. She didn't wonder about Ben being alive or dead, or worry about whether or not Shawn would even take her back after this.

Instead, she went over and over her planned opener for the paparazzi the next day, and only when she was sure of her approach did she close her eyes and try to sleep.

She dreamed, and though she woke the next morning with a pounding heart and a vague sense of unease, she couldn't remember the dream itself.

* * *

Lassiter was a cop again.

Not exactly a cop – he was a private citizen(ish) with no badge and no authority – but he was chasing a wanted criminal using paperwork and hitting the pavement and good old-fashioned detective work, and doing so with his partner at his side and no more equipment than a handgun.

It was as close to joy as he could feel, and everything he could have asked from Lady Justice. He clung to it, and to O'Hara's regard: back to normal, and so much different than what they'd had since he'd found out about her dating Spencer (though he was sure half that distance was his fault). Even knowing her breakup with Spencer was temporary, having him gone cleared the air.

Telling O'Hara the truth had cleared the air, too. She didn't blame him for caving that man's face in, and now she knew the truth behind his introduction to Spencer. Whether she would believe it, would at last be able to shake off the con artist's razzle-dazzle routine was another matter.

But there was time for that. Something, though he didn't know what, about their ordeal had shaken her faith in Spencer. He didn't wish O'Hara the pain of finding out the truth. And he definitely didn't want her to know what Spencer was just to make himself look better by comparison (okay, maybe a bit, even though he still wouldn't be able to chase her either way for fear of bringing Spencer's retaliation down on her head). But he at least wanted her to finally understand what she was dealing with. What she'd signed on for.

That Spencer didn't have some magical gift that meant he was better than O'Hara. He was just a man, and a man who should be proving himself to _O'Hara_, not the other way around.

And what was more, their temporary breakup meant Spencer wasn't around to protect Despereaux this time. Despereaux was his, his and O'Hara's, if only they could find his target.

Lassiter was far more comfortable as predator than prey.

Part of him wondered if that hadn't been what had caught Ben's attention in the first place, the way his world was narrowing down to Despereaux's trail and the overwhelming need to follow it, to finally bring him _down_.

"Ready to bag an art thief?" O'Hara asked, knocking on his door with two pastries and two cups of free coffee.

Even if he was more comfortable hunting than hunted, so was O'Hara. His partner was no less energized than him, the dark despair parting in the sheer rush of it.

"Always."

* * *

The paparazzi didn't follow everyone in the city: only the famous ones. Fortunately for Lassiter and O'Hara, the rich followed the famous ones as well.

"Yeah," they were finally told by a paparazzo named "Foxy Harris" for a not-insubstantial bribe, "I've seen him around. He's been palling around wit' a lady, Alara Montesserat, real cougar. Usually goes for the younger ones, but this one, 'e 'ad charm. Pretty camera shy, this one, ducked out of every shot, an' well, that's something you notice."

Alara Montesserat, married to one Randall Simons the Third and mother to Randall Simons the Fourth (called Randy-Quad by his prep-school-for-the-Ivy-League friends on his Facebook), lived in a house that lived up to both names: posh and gleaming in the center of new-money residences. The surrounding area was undeveloped, waiting for buyers wealthy enough for the privilege of high ground and to pay the water bill for extravagant landscaping. It was easy enough to stake out the property with a telephoto lens (which Juliet had packed for taking scenery shots) and binoculars.

They hit paydirt almost immediately: Despereaux was dropped off by a high-end driver service (the car was a dead giveaway). He had doubtlessly been shown the secret ways onto the property by Alara: she'd sent the servants away, and was unsurprised when Despereaux appeared in the living room without setting off a single alarm, including the large Belgian Malinois that guarded the property.

They watched through the camera and binoculars, Carlton rattling off their dialogue as he read their lips. Despereaux was charming, his words seductive even when stripped of context and recited with Carlton's dripping disdain.

As the evening drew to a close, Alara promised to show Despereaux something "special." This far out, there wasn't much worry of casual passer-by seeing them. Apparently Alara didn't know enough about Despereaux (she referred to him as Edgar) to be worried about police surveillance, so she neither closed the curtains nor drew the blinds. Instead she led Despereaux up to the office with pride and fondness, interspersed with promises of desire and promises that he'd love what he saw.

When they reached the posh office, decorated with gilded refinement and a reproduction of "Starry Night over the Rhone," Alara pushed the reproduction aside to reveal the true star of the room. Carlton didn't recognize the painting, but Juliet gasped and started taking pictures almost immediately.

"What?" Carlton demanded.

"You don't recognize that?" Juliet said, still snapping pictures as Despereaux faked disbelief at what was before him.

"No," Carlton said, not even bothering to relay Despereaux's lies. The gleam in his eyes was covetous enough for anyone to see who wasn't blinded by romance-colored glasses. "It wasn't on our list of targets."

"It's 'View of the Sea from the Cathedral,'" Juliet said, still clicking away, her voice high and excited. "It's by Graubaer von Boker. It was stolen from the Dutch National Art Museum in 2002, and it's been missing ever since." Juliet paused, and hearing that the name wasn't recognized, continued, "Von Boker was an 1800s Impressionist artist operating in Holland at the same time van Gogh was in France. He's almost as big a deal. I have coffee mugs with both von Boker's 'The Black Smoke' and 'The Heart of the Island.'"

"Well," Carlton said, viciously pleased. "Now we know why he's in San Francisco."

* * *

Now that there were two crimes involved – both Despereaux being free and the ownership of stolen property – they had to tread carefully. It was pointless to capture Despereaux only to not have enough evidence to pin the Montesserat-Simons duo for owning a priceless painting that belonged in a museum for everyone. Lassiter and O'Hara's word wasn't enough for a warrant against the kind of money Montesserat and Simons obviously had, but catching Despereaux with the painting would be enough to convince him to turn on Alara for a lighter sentence.

Carlton wanted all three – Despereaux, Alara, and her husband – and he wanted it with every fiber of his being. So did Juliet. And since neither Ben nor Shawn could find them, especially now that they were staking out a mansion instead of hitting the tourist traps, they were free to want it more than they were afraid.

_Hemingway wrote: "There is no hunting like the hunting of man; and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else."_

It had been one of his favorite quotes from Criminal Minds, beautiful in its truth and simplicity. Now, spending his trauma leave perched behind a sagebrush waiting for dangerous felon to show up, the quote nagged at him. Burned him. Was this what Ben had seen, what had drawn Ben to choose Carlton out of all the detectives and ex-military targets he could have chosen?

Was he really so different from the men who'd chased him through the woods?

Didn't that make him a monster, as much as what he'd done that Juliet said she forgave him for?

On the second night he confessed his doubts to Juliet. They were spending sixteen hours on, eight hours off to minimize the time they were alone. Alone time could end in unexpected sleep, or a bored dullness to the mind that led one to make mistakes.

Her reply was simple: "If this makes you an animal, Carlton, it makes me one as well because I'm right here with you. Am I a monster?"

His reply was instant: "Never."

"This is what we do, Lassiter," Juliet continued, taking her eyes away from the Simons home to look at her partner, her hand resting warm and comforting on his knee in the night air. "We find bad people who want to hurt other people, and we put them away for as long as we can. If we have to kill them to protect someone or to protect someone else, we do because we don't have another choice in that moment. That's not the same as paying to kill someone we've never met, or killing someone because we enjoy it."

Carlton looked back at the Simons home. If he was an animal – and he was, Lassiter was still certain – than at least he was a tamed one.

* * *

"Wake up!" Juliet hissed when Despereaux appeared. Before, she would have shook his shoulder or his leg, but she wasn't naïve enough to do that now. It was nearly 7AM, dawn just waning. Mr. Simons had left for a business trip the night before, and Randy-Quad was still at his boarding school in Europe.

Carlton made a sleepy sound and roused himself.

"What?"

"Despereaux." She didn't need to say anything more. Carlton shot up, adjusting his seat and wiping the sleep from his eyes. He took the binoculars from the glove compartment. Despereaux entered the property same way he'd entered the first night they'd seen him with Alara, but with key differences. He walked up instead of being dropped off in a car. After greeting the Malinois he gave it a piece of meat, doubtlessly drugged. He even knew the dog's Dutch "take" command. He dodged the servants just as he had the night before, winding his way up the office. He slid the reproduced painting aside.

Juliet twitched. If they were on-duty, they could rush in with backup at their heels and have them both. But they weren't on-duty or in-jurisdiction. A citizen's arrest wasn't valid on private property belonging to another. They had to wait until Despereaux got into the street with the stolen goods.

They watched as Despereaux removed the painting. It was only 18 inches tall, just small enough to be wrapped in silk and lowered on the old-fashioned dumbwaiter. Despereaux tracked back across the quiet home. They lost sight of him.

Juliet tensed, scanning to the left as Carlton scanned to the right. They couldn't have lost him. Well, they could, Despereaux was tricky like that, but it would be a bitter loss.

Juliet heard the rattle of a diesel engine laboring up hill. She turned her camera to face the source of the sound: a laundry service truck.

"Got him," Lassiter said, sharp and clear. "The old laundry cart trick."

Indeed, she didn't have to be a lip reader to see the servants were complaining to the laundry men how much heavier the cart was than normal. The cart – which was more than big enough to hold a man and the painting with sheets and towels on top – was loaded into the truck and the door slid shut.

"Perfect crime my ass," Lassiter spat, starting up the car. "Nothing more than a common criminal."

Juliet grabbed her weapon, her pulse rushing. This was it. Despereaux wouldn't be able to pull the painting from the cart and exit with it while the truck was being loaded. He had to plan to exit at the laundry facility itself. He probably had a car parked nearby, and a jet on standby.

Lassiter caught up to the laundry truck and passed it. Juliet leaped from the car as soon as Carlton parked. Lassiter parked sideways in the middle of the street: the truck couldn't just drive around.

"What the Hell?" the driver demanded.

"You've got a stowaway," Juliet said as Carlton ran around the side of the van. "And we want him."

"Are you crazy?" the driver said, his partner opening the door and stepping out. Neither of them looked menacing or even unsurprised. They weren't professionals, just an unsuspecting service crew. Despereaux had obviously heard Juliet talking, or else Carlton had reached the back of the van, because both she and the laundrymen heard the back of the van slide open.

They also heard the crack of flesh on flesh and a body hitting the pavement.

"Got him," Lassiter barked. Juliet pulled out the disposable cell they'd bought just for this purpose and dialed 911.

"San Francisco Dispatch. What is the emergency?" The woman's voice was disciplined.

"This is Juliet O'Hara at the corner of Brentwood and Oakwood," Juliet said calmly, even though her heart was racing. They'd done it, they'd actually done it. Even in a worst case scenario, that the charges didn't stick and they couldn't get the Simonses, the painting would still be returned to the museum and Despereaux would still be in police custody. Anyone who compared Despereaux's face to his photo would be compelled to order a re-submission and comparison to Despereaux's original DNA sample, which would still be in the processing lab's cold storage. He was going back to jail.

Juliet advanced around the van. Carlton was explaining to Despereaux that he was being legally apprehended as he slapped Juliet's cuffs on the fugitive.

"We just performed a citizen's arrest of a man stealing a painting," Juliet told the dispatcher.

"And how do you know he stole the painting, Ms. O'Hara?"

"We watched him do it, and took pictures. He took the painting from the office, used the dumbwaiter to get it to the basement, and then sneak out in a laundry cart. We need police at our location."

"One car has been dispatched, Ms. O'Hara. Please stay on the line."

Despereaux was grinning.

"And where is dear Shawn?" Smug bastard.

"He's not here," Juliet said, and didn't even pretend not to take satisfaction in the way Despereaux's face fell in confused disappointment.


	11. Adrift

As soon as Juliet and Carlton were taken to the SFPD, Lassiter realized they hadn't really thought this through.

Somehow, they'd pictured dropping Despereaux off on the police department's doorstep and disappearing back into peaceful anonymity for the rest of their vacation - interrupted only by being interviewed as witnesses – and then returning to Santa Barbara to face the IA review panel, get reinstated, and maybe have a pair of commendations waiting for them. In the rush of hunting Despereaux, distracted by working through the emotional wreckage Ben had left behind, it had seemed like a legitimate set of assumptions.

As soon as the officers assigned to collect Despereaux took one look at the painting inside the towel cart, they were on the horn to Dispatch. The freaked-out look on the officers' faces reminded both Juliet and Carlton of several salient facts that, as law enforcement officers, they should have considered.

1) Hacking into CODIS was a Federal crime, as were escaping from a Federal prison and faking your death to keep from serving time for Federal charges.

2) The theft of von Boker's painting had taken place on Dutch soil, which meant its recovery in the United States made the original theft (and the sale of said stolen property) an international crime.

3) Furthermore, von Boker was almost as big a deal as Van Gogh, which meant the Dutch government? Would most definitely be interested, as would the Dutch National Art Museum.

They might as well have posted their location on Facebook and Tweeted it to Ben for good measure.

Fortunately for them, the officer at Booking had Googled Despereaux's face on her phone. Not only was he being treated like a maximum-security flight risk - full restraints, 24-hour two-man watch, and all – but the Captain of the precinct was now in a potentially career-ending situation. One of his detectives had received a report that a high-profile federal escapee might be operating in the city and, without consulting anyone higher up in the chain of command, had disregarded that warning without even so much as a cursory investigation. Now the individual in question had been apprehended by a pair of off-duty cops who weren't even from San Francisco, _and_ that felon had been caught in the middle of an even higher-profile crime.

The Captain not only wasn't interested in trying to trump up and steal the glory, he wanted the whole mess as far from his precinct as possible, as fast as possible, and with as little attention from the press as possible in hopes no one would notice SFPD had had the chance and had dropped the ball. He asked Lassiter and O'Hara to wait quietly at the precinct for the FBI to arrive, plying them with repeated references to professional courtesy and offering the finest of chow-hall cold-cut sandwiches and coffee as a bribe.

They agreed. Not calling the press and not leaving the secured building filled with armed officers of the law? Worked for them.

"It's possible the FBI agents were right, that even if he's alive Ben won't be interested in us," Juliet said, washing down the last of her sandwich with the bitter coffee.

"It's also possible he's dead," Carlton growled, "but we have to be prepared to face the fact neither are true." Lassiter sighed, looking down at the cheap sandwich in his hands, then looked at the faded interrogation room walls.

He didn't have to say it: they also couldn't keep living in fear. Or trying to hide. Eventually – very quickly, in fact – they would have to return to their real lives knowing Ben could find them wherever they were.

"I hope he crawled into the woods and died," Juliet said, crumpling up her sandwich wrapper. It wasn't the kind of thing she would have said, before. Now she thought it all the time.

"So do I," Lassiter agreed.

* * *

The FBI was willing to be discreet and to take over the investigation into Despereaux's identity, but they had already called Interpol. They had no choice. Lassiter and O'Hara couldn't leave San Francisco.

They switched hotels, and spent most of their time waiting at the FBI's field office. As soon as they knew what to look for, the White Collar Division found Despereaux's hacking. The resubmission and testing was ordered.

The Interpol police arrived with a Dutch authenticator to look at the painting. As soon as he declared it authentic, he demanded permission to inform his government. The investigation against the Montesserat-Simonses began in earnest.

After that, there was no stopping the avalanche.

After giving Juliet exactly 48 hours of space, Shawn had doped Gus with Nighttime Benadryl, called Gus in sick to his pharmaceutical route, and kidnapped both his partner and the Blueberry. Until the story broke, he'd had no concrete trail to follow. (Something Gus had pointed out loudly, interspersed with empty threats to strand Shawn in Frisco while Gus returned to Santa Barbara.)

Once it did, Shawn not only knew where his runaway girlfriend and her partner in 'crime' were, but he had one more reason to find them.

"Jules! Jules!"

"Oh, good God," Carlton said, running his hands through his hair.

"Carlton," Juliet chided, even though she wasn't certain how she felt about Shawn's arrival.

They were in the lobby of the field office, waiting on the arrival of some Dutch diplomat who wanted to speak with them. Lassiter's and O'Hara's trauma leave ran out in two days, then it would be back to Santa Barbara for both of them. It seemed like everyone was trying to beat the deadline.

The first words out of Shawn's mouth when he finally passed security and approached them weren't what Juliet expected.

"How could you arrest Despereaux?"

Juliet blinked, floored.

"I mean, I know how Lassie could, he's Lassie, but _you_?"

"Excuse me?" Juliet demanded. Her voice was nearly shrill with fury. She couldn't believe Shawn's first words were a statement that she not only wasn't enough of a detective to catch a criminal of Despereaux's caliber, but that she wasn't even as good of a detective as Lassiter.

She knew what Shawn thought of Lassiter's abilities.

"He got away clean with a Yerden," Shawn said, his voice filled with wonder and something like pleading, "in a Xanatos Gambit that would make Ra's Al Ghul and Lex Luthor weep in envy. Everyone thought he was dead. But you couldn't let him have that, could you? You just had to drag him down into the depths of defeat, to end his career in igneous disgrace."

"It's ignominious," Gus said, "Igneous is a rock. And he doesn't mean that. We are both well aware that Despereaux is a wanted, wanted felon who deserves to rot in jail."

"Yes, I do, and igneous is a saint."

"That's Ignatius."

"I've heard it both ways."

"No, you haven't!"

Juliet stared, open-mouthed. The room was spinning, and she couldn't breathe.

_I lied – it's what we do, isn't it, Shawn?_

Shawn wasn't criticizing her skills as a police officer, or even expressing disbelief that she's managed the collar. He didn't think she was less of a cop than Lassiter.

He couldn't believe she'd done that _to Shawn_, couldn't believe she'd captured his idol, whereas he could believe it of the cold-blooded Lassiter. He probably even thought arresting Despereaux had amounted to choosing Lassiter's side over Shawn's.

"Oh my God, oh my God," she said through the hand she put over her mouth. The other rested on her stomach. His idol, the great con-artist and thief. The perfect criminal.

The way Shawn had urged her to give her father a second chance, had forced him into the investigation and upheld him as, as, as something for her to admire or at least be fond of. How personally Shawn had taken her anger at her father.

It all made sense now.

A con artist knew a con artist, and a liar knew better than anyone what a lie looked like.

It hadn't been a mind game.

Ben hadn't been trying to gaslight her.

He'd been holding the knowledge of Shawn's deceit over her head, showing her how stupid she was in comparison – to have been fooled when Ben was not. Shawn had backed down because he'd been afraid Ben would share his proof, whatever it was, with Juliet.

Every day, every case, for the past nearly eight years – every moment he'd raised his hand to his temple, every time he'd bragged about his own wizardry: he'd been lying to Juliet. And she'd believed it.

Believed it, and berated Carlton when he'd been right all along.

"O'Hara," Carlton said bracingly, one hand on each elbow. Juliet felt her eyes burn.

"Jules?" Shawn said, realizing something was wrong.

"I can't believe it, I can't believe it, oh my _God_. Ben was right. Oh, my God."

Right about Shawn, and right about Carlton. He'd thrown the truths at her to wound her and to disorient her, but they'd been truths nonetheless. Such was the source of their power: she'd been so blind.

"Jules, we've been over this," Shawn said, gentle and patronizing.

Juliet jerked her arm free, but she didn't slap him.

She balled up her fist and threw her weight into it, hitting with every ounce of Academy training.

"You had that coming," Lassiter said, his hand lighting on her shoulder as the first furious sob broke through Juliet's control.

"Just get out," Juliet choked out at Shawn. "Go away."

"Jules," Shawn said, his hazel eyes wide. He had one hand pressed to his jaw. His face was still covered in old bruises, some turning faintly green.

Lassiter stepped forward, interposing himself between Shawn and Juliet. The promise of violence crackling around him like an aura.

"Come on Shawn," Gus said, pulling in Shawn's upper arm and staring at Lassiter like a terrified deer.

Either Shawn was too shocked by Juliet's turnaround to resist Gus, or else even Shawn remembered seeing the exact depths to which that promise of violence could sink, or else the FBI agents coming to investigate the altercation weren't something Shawn wanted to deal with now that Juliet wouldn't be providing any protection or urging Lassiter to do the same.

Juliet pressed her face into Lassiter's collar as the sobs took over. She'd been so blind, such a fool, told point-blank by a murdering sociopath and she still hadn't seen until now.

"It'll be fine," Lassiter promised her, gathering his partner in his arms as he had before. "It'll be fine, O'Hara."

* * *

The Dutch National Art Museum threw them a party. They weren't in the partying mood, either of them, but neither wanted to cause a diplomatic incident by refusing. Neither of them had packed formal-wear, so the Dutch government funded a shopping spree.

The speeches were humiliating. Juliet didn't know where the masterful detective the diplomats were saluting was, when she'd been taken in by Shawn for seven years. Lassiter didn't know which the hero the diplomats were talking about, either, when not fourteen days ago he'd strangled a man to death with his tie for water.

They both believed the praise given to their partner to be only just dues despite everything, however, and focused their replies to any question on the good work done by their other half.

The impression of modesty only made them seem more endearing.

It wasn't until the party had worn well into the mingling that Lassiter and O'Hara were able to break away and hide, finding a dark office tucked away from the main drag. Carlton stole a bottle of champagne from a distracted server – it was their party – and Juliet carried their empty flutes.

A light would give them away, so they pulled chairs over to the windows and used the streetlights for illumination as Carlton refilled their glasses.

They watched the street below, the sparkling lights of city. The musicians below were singing "Neon Blue," and the slow jazz suited their mood.

"I wonder how many other women Despereaux seduced for information," O'Hara wondered, then held out her half-empty glass for a second refill.

"It's probably the secret of his success," Lassiter said. "A lunch lady at a prison facility can get you a lot: a guard's drink spiked at the right moment, even keys. The famous art thief, wanted world-wide! He was just a confidence man this entire time. A charming smile, a witty joke, and he's 'in.'"

Juliet drank her champagne. She remembered how often Shawn had used those tricks to get her to let him in at a crime scene. Juliet wanted to believe Shawn's affections for her had been sincere, separate from his lies, but who really knew? Maybe she had more in common with Alara Montesserat than she'd thought.

And she'd still have to work with Shawn. Neither she nor Carlton had any concrete proof Shawn was a fraud, nothing that would convince Vick her good luck charm was a con man. Even if they did, would they dare expose him? Every case he'd ever been on would have to be retried. Not only would the evidence Shawn provided directly be thrown out, but every subsequent piece of evidence gained due to that original piece would be inadmissible as well. Like a search conducted with a faulty warrant: fruit of the poison tree.

Not having evidence only made it easier to keep quiet. It erased the question of which was the greater good entirely, because there was nothing they could do.

She wondered if this was the only reason Carlton had been able to bear the burden of knowing these past seven years.

"I'm so sorry," Juliet said, feeing her eyes burn again and draining more champagne from her glass to cover it.

"It's not your fault," Carlton said. He reached out with his free hand to pat her knee. Then he picked the champagne bottle up off the nearby table and filled his own glass. "I'm sorry you had to find out. But it's nice having someone else who knows, now."

"Yeah," Juliet said. At least she didn't have to bear this alone.

Wouldn't have to, when they got back to Santa Barbara.

When she had to face Shawn again.

She never thought she'd ever hate the idea of seeing the SBPD. She'd always wanted to be a detective, but now it all seemed like a lie. Partnership to a lie. Even if she told the truth, no one would believe her anymore than she had believed Carlton. Shawn's outright con was putting bad men in jail. Even if she could out his lie, it would set a whole host of bad men and women free to keep doing bad hings to good people.

How was she supposed to reconcile this? How was she supposed to be a cop again, to tell people to trust the law again, knowing this was going on?

Juliet wasn't Carlton. She didn't have his ruthlessness, his ability to strip everything about himself down to whatever he needed to achieve his goal.

There was a reason Ben had put her in the cage, and Carlton in the woods.

"We don't have to go back," Juliet blurted, startling herself. As soon as she said it, she latched onto the wild idea like it was her soul's salvation. Carlton raised his eyebrows, and Juliet barreled on, "we do for the hearing, obviously, but this. We could do this, all the time, make money at it. Professional investigators or bail enforcement agents – no Chief looking over our shoulders telling us how to work or who-"

The rest of the sentence, "who to work with," died on her tongue. Juliet didn't have to say it. She knew Carlton was thinking it.

"You don't have to answer right away," Juliet finished lamely. "Just think about it?" She looked down at her glass. Empty again. "Assuming it isn't just the champagne."

"I'll think about it," Lassiter said, his voice deep and even. When she looked up, his blue eyes were focused on her, not the street below. "I promise."

* * *

"It is the decision of this review board," March said, his voice dispassionate, "that though unorthodox in their actions, Detectives O'Hara and Lassiter conducted themselves within the principles of the code of ethics of the Santa Barbara Police Department, and the laws of the State of California and the United States of America."

March looked away from the gathering of officers standing at the back of the room to the two seated detectives and their union reps.

"It is also the viewpoint of this board," March continued, gentling his voice, "that the above-stated officers were placed in an untenable situation, one which most people would not have been able to survive. They displayed courage and inventiveness, and in the process saved the lives of the two civilian hostages, and brought to justice a grisly human trafficking enterprise.

"Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara are to be returned to active duty with full pay, starting immediately. This hearing is adjourned."

March closed his manila envelope.

Lassiter let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. They were clean kills, good shoots.

He was an animal, but not a monster. Still a cop. Still tamed. O'Hara smiled at him, and squeezed his hand.

Lassiter stood and moved towards the door, accepting the congratulatory and relieved pats and sympathies. He'd made it half-way down the hall, headed to Vick's office to pick up his badge and gun, when one of the State's Attorneys calling his name stopped him.

"Detective, I'm glad to hear you were cleared," Jeff said, shaking Lassiter's hand professionally. "I'm liaising with the federal prosecutor in Idaho, the one in charge of prosecuting the men captured by the FBI after your… incident."

The men who'd been hunting Lassiter but actually hadn't crossed paths with him, and those of Ben's men who had been captured.

Lassiter frowned. He'd worked with Jeff before, several times in fact, and there was gravity to his bearing that was usually only caused by particularly base defense attorney shenanigans.

"I'm sorry to have to inform you that the defense for one of the arrested 'hunters' has put in a request with the SBPD for your psychological evaluation. Which, as you know, is not flattering. He's trying to say his client thought the entire event was staged, and only stayed in the 'hunt' after realizing it was real out of fear that without the protection of the group he would be hunted down by the dangerously disturbed police detective set loose upon them by the man known as 'Ben.' The federal prosecutor wishes to order a new psych eval done and I wholeheartedly agree. I know your dislike of psychologists, Detective, but I was hoping I could influence you to be cooperative."

"Because he was afraid of me?" Carlton said. He couldn't stifle the laughter like burning thornbushes that crackled from his throat, and he didn't try.

"Yes," Jeff said. "Will you? Be cooperative?"

"Sure," Carlton wheezed. Let them pick him apart, stand up before the entire courtroom and declare him a monster. Maybe he'd sneak in a gun and prove the point. Whoever the defendant was, he had it coming.

Lassiter walked away exhausted. He didn't make it to Vick's office, instead dropping into his chair and watching the bustle of the bullpen.

He didn't want to do this anymore.

He could have gotten killed out there, and what would he have left behind?

And what had he come back to? A rich defendant with a slick lawyer, trying to paint his client's depravity as the fault of the very system trying to cage and punish that depravity. With enough money, enough 'experts' putting on enough of a show, and the right jury it would work. He'd get off, maybe even turn around and keep doing the same thing.

And there he and Juliet would be, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll to the base again, fighting the system as hard as they fought the criminals. A system that made Spencer a necessary evil, a useful shortcut, and that sheltered him by the very consequences of exposing him.

A system that might let off the men who had hunted Carlton like an animal in defiance of all human decency and the law itself, just because Carlton was an animal.

Carlton turned to his computer and pulled up the Internet. He looked up the certification requirements for a PI and a BEA in the State of California: how much it would cost, how long it would take. He printed out what he'd found. He put the pages in a manila folder, and put the folder on O'Hara's desk topped with a snickerdoodle from the plate of cookies by the coffee pot.

Then he swung by Vick's office for his badge, gun, and hesitant congratulations.

When he returned to his desk, O'Hara was looking at the folder. She smiled at him and flashed him both thumbs up.


	12. And Found

The first step was to talk to Marlowe, because Carlton couldn't face a lifetime's worth of trying to recapture the man he was before so she could have him back. "Your Carlton never made it out of the woods" was considerably more dramatic than Carlton would usually resort to, but Marlowe agreed. She packed her bags and moved in with a friend until she got on her feet.

Juliet informed Vick that she'd broken up with Shawn. Knowing they were on their way out of the department made it easier to maintain the illusion of professionalism. If Juliet suddenly seemed to share Lassiter's dislike for Shawn's abilities, the police staff chalked it up to post-breakup regret. They ignored the worst of Shawn's antics in that same light.

O'Hara didn't.

The first preparations were financial. Juliet broke her lease and moved into a smaller apartment to save money on rent, money she squirreled away towards office rent, fees, and a safety net to tide her over until their new business got on its feet. Carlton put his condo up for sale in an attempt to get out from under the mortgage, but the home economy was still sluggish, so it was a shaky plan. He scrimped in other ways, cutting every "non-essential" expense but his therapist.

They found a ratty office well away from the Marina and offered the property management company a deal: the property management company would waive the rental fee until O'Hara and Lassiter actually opened the business, and in exchange Lassiter and O'Hara would provide the materials and labor for a remodel. The management company ran the detectives' credit, examined their proof of a startup loan from the bank, and agreed. The two of them spent every weekend on the project.

The rest of the preparations were simple: exams to take and fees to pay, applications to fill out and forms to register.

The name was the longest discussion, until they finally settled on O'Hara's mother's suggestion: "Lost and Found." Since they would be both private investigators and bail enforcement agents, the name described both aspects of their function. They would be investigating more white-collar crime than anything else – true private detectives were relied on heavily by investors and those who had had their identities stolen – so it would also appeal to their client base.

They gave the Chief their notice right before filing the last of their forms. Only then did they hit up bondsmen they'd worked with before as police officers. They also set up a Grand Opening, and paid for a small radio spot to advertise it.

It was exhilarating, and even as she stood in the office's small kitchenette making finger-food for the next day's Opening, Juliet couldn't believe they'd actually done it. They could fail miserably, they could end up broke and destitute and homeless. They could end up having to crawl back to Vick and beg for their old jobs.

Or this could be amazing, a wonderful adventure. They'd certainly be travelling around enough they'd be hard to find.

Juliet passed the chopped vegetables to Carlton and began slicing the meats.

It certainly felt right, though, to be here. Free. Juliet looked around at the place they'd created, the subdued and professional décor: two desks, side-by-side and a small area to the side for conducting interviews. Maps and some of Carlton's military-esque décor were on the main office walls, interspersed with filing cabinets and bookshelves filled with pertinent volumes from their personal libraries. The kitchenette was done in pale flowers, right next to the small restroom. They'd had the stenciling on the windows done in old newspaper font, bold black and a hint of gold underlay.

"We did good work," Carlton said. Juliet looked up and to the side at her partner. She'd once told Shawn that her type was tall, athletic, secure, and genuine. Juliet could see now that Shawn was none of those things, and Carlton was all of them. She'd just been too blinded by Lassiter's prickly reserve and Shawn's charm to see it.

But the SBPD wasn't an issue anymore. There was no career for Shawn to malign with his rantings, and Juliet could see Carlton's devotion and affection written clearly in his beautiful blue eyes. He would never leave her, never betray her. He'd killed for her already.

It was a terrible risk, but no more than Lost & Found – and how appropriate a name for their business, Juliet mused.

"Carlton, close your eyes."

Lassiter turned to face her, and did as requested with no more protest than a curious tilt of his head.

Juliet rested her hands on his shoulders and leaned up. Carlton's mouth was soft, warm. He tasted like cinnamon gum (allergic to mint, she remembered) and the strong coffee he'd brewed to keep himself going during the last-minute preparations.

His response was immediate and ardent, but gentle.

Juliet felt… safe. For the first time, she let herself believe the possibility that Ben wasn't coming back.

* * *

Gus knew as soon as he heard the radio spot that there was going to be trouble. Shawn had taken Juliet's distance hard, but he'd held himself together by clinging to the hope that Juliet still thought of the breakup as temporary – that when she'd recovered from the ordeal, life would return to normal like a television show that had punched the weekly reset button.

The Grand Opening was incontrovertible proof that life was never going to return to normal. Lassiter and O'Hara had been permanently changed by Ben's hunt, and Shawn was going to be permanently changed as well whether he liked it or not.

"That's it!" Shawn declared, rising up from his desk and throwing his half-eaten crème sickle in the garbage. "I'm going over there."

Gus tried to talk him out of it the entire ride there, clinging to the back of Shawn's bike and shouting into the wind.

When they parked, they both could see Carlton and Juliet kissing through the window. Juliet's arms were around Lassiter's shoulders, and Lassiter's hands were resting gently on Juliet's hips.

"Oh, Hell," Gus said, and dove for Shawn's shoulder as he practically threw himself off the bike.

"I'm going in there," Shawn said, charging across the street and talking over Gus's protests that Shawn needed to stop. "I'm going in there and she's going to tell me what's so much better about Lassie, and then I'll show her that I'm better, and I'm going to get her back even if it means proving I'm psychic again-"

"But you're not psychic, Shawn!" Gus said, planting both arms on Shawn's chest and, for the first time since they were children, refusing to move. "You're not. And right now you've got a choice: you can be the really cool guy she used to date, or you can be the psycho ex who flipped out when she moved on. What's it going to be, Shawn?"

Shawn's eyes were wide, and luminous with unshed tears.

"Gus, I love her."

"That's not enough." It was harsh, but it was true, and Gus said it because Shawn needed to hear it.

"It should be."

"It isn't. Not always." Gus pulled his hands from Shawn's chest. He gently punched his friend in the arm. "But you'll always have me."

"Yeah?" Shawn said shakily.

"Yeah. Me, and dinner at Chuck-E-Cheese. Shall we?"

Shawn nodded, and backed away from the Lost & Found office. He turned his back on the window, and followed Gus away.

Because he had always had, and would always have, Gus.

* * *

_Juliet listed her ideal man to Shawn in "A Very Juliet Episode." Yes, that was the actual list. My hand to God, I did not make that up._


End file.
